


with or without his unhallowed touch

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Forced Relationship, Gaslighting, Gen, Hindu Tony Stark, Hurt Tony Stark, Indian Tony Stark, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Obsessive Behavior, Physical Abuse, Possessive Behavior, Rape, Stockholm Syndrome, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony is Kidnapped by Thanos, Tony is the Soul Stone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 132,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22998748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Toni sees the Chitauri mothership high above her, sees the hundreds and thousands of warships that circle the Earth, and she knows, she knows.She thinks,oh, I understand.A beat.Her hand burns.Wow, we are so fucked.She lets the bomb slide out of her hands, watches as it floats towards the mothership, and fire rains down on her, even in the dark, pale, cold hollow of space.She laughs, breathlessly, thinks of all the ones who’d loved her the most, and dies.
Relationships: Gamora & Nebula (Marvel), Gamora & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Nebula & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Tony Stark, Unrequited Tony Stark/Thanos
Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600798
Comments: 358
Kudos: 700
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be specifying the warnings for each chapter as I go, because this does get pretty fucked up.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: non-consensual body modification, Thanos being a creepy, obsessive douchebag who thinks him and Toni are soulmates, death of a child, genocide. 
> 
> Written for the 'darkfic' square (R1) of the Tony Stark Bingo 2020. 
> 
> The title for this fic came from one of Nikita Gill's poems.

Toni sees the Chitauri mothership high above her, sees the hundreds and thousands of warships that circle the Earth, and she knows, she knows.

She thinks, _oh, I understand._

A beat.

Her hand burns.

_Wow, we are so fucked._

She lets the bomb slide out of her hands, watches as it floats towards the mothership, and fire rains down on her, even in the dark, pale, cold hollow of space.

She laughs, breathlessly, thinks of all the ones who’d loved her the most, and dies.

* * *

There are hands in her chest, wet hands, big hands, streaked with blood and her insides, and she sobs, hating herself for it, remembering Afghanistan, that fucking cave and she’s supposed to be fucking better, fucking stronger.

For one long, terrible second, it all stops, and she’s greedy enough to lean into the relief, stupid enough to reach for it, because it’s just for a second, and she opens her eyes and a woman is standing at her hip.

She sees all of them in that instant: Maria and Ana and Peggy and Pepper and Sharon; all their faces and their eyes and their hands and their mouths and the things they say to her ( _Ahalya, Antonia, Toni, Tinkertoni, lelkem, FIGHT_ ).

And then, she sees her.

She has dark hair and dark skin and dark eyes and hands like corpses, rotted and peeling until she can see the pale sinew underneath.

She touches her.

Toni cringes away.

But she grips her throat like she would crush the life out of her in a moment.

She leans in.

“Earn your names, Antonia,” she demands.

She kisses her hard on the mouth and Toni tastes her death.

And then she’s screaming like an animal in a trap, all ugly and loud, when someone fists her red, bleeding, beating heart in their big hands.

And then she lapses into unconsciousness.

When she stirs, her eyes are raw, rimed with salt, and she can hear the steady functioning of her heart and lungs in her ears, a shrill mechanical edge to every heartbeat, every desperate pump of her lungs.

_What the fuck._

She lifts her hand to her face.

Five fingers, knuckles, tendons and a thin, bony wrist.

She turns it over.

The pads of her fingers, calloused, lines etched into her palm, the shadow of blue veins under her brown skin, and a pulse that thuds painfully.

She fists her hands in her hair, long and thick and brown.

Two eyes.

She winces she pokes them, but it was necessary.

 _Brown_ , she thinks. They’re brown, almost black, her eyes. She’ll have to check when she gets her hands on a mirror.

The arch of a fine nose.

Not her original one, she remembers, and Howard’s firm, unyielding face blooms in her eyes.

_“This will be good for you, Antonia. It’ll help. You’re not doing anything a thousand other Jewish girls haven’t done before.”_

A familiar rage curdles in her belly.

A full, pink mouth and a thin jaw. Ears, a long, lean neck and shoulders and elbows.

When she tries to grope her tits, her fingers hit metal instead.

She stamps down the flutter of panic.

_There were go._

There’s always something.

She jackknifes to her waist, and she clutches at her skull, which pounds – God, she might even vomit; she might have already, she can taste the bile, rancid, in her mouth.

The room spins, but she can see it’s dark and cold, with just a hint of gaslight, but her eyes tilt downward until they settle on her chest. There’s plating over it, from under her arms stretching down to the edge of her ribcage, the stain of it the colour of blackberries with thin silver lines running through it, like circuitry.

She’s completely naked on the cot, which is lucky, if not concerning, because she can see her stomach is bare and brown and fleshy, when she pokes it. She wiggles her toes to be sure and sighs, because it’s just her chest – she’s around 88% sure that it’s just her chest.

She’s most certainly not panicking.

Her lungs are most certainly in her throat.

No, she is most certainly not panicking.

But in good news, she’s breathing better than she has since she was fourteen and discovered Polish vodka and cigarettes.

She slips of the cot onto shaky feet, fingers gripping the edge, and closes her eyes, the world still spinning somewhat.

Her ears ring.

She presses a hand to her aching sternum and cringes immediately, the metal where there should have been skin only making her skin crawl.

The door to her glamourised cell swings open, and a large thing ( _thing_ is the only word that comes to mind, even if it isn’t the most PC of terms) storms inside, as alien as the Chitauri had been to her, but with humanoid features: red eyes like blood, a sharp noise and pale, thin mouth, with skin the colour of a vicious bruise.

His eyes flicker with surprise when he catches her on her feet, but nothing more, nothing heated, nothing hungry.

“You’re awake,” he rumbles.

She lifts a brow. “Apparently so,” she says, dryly, motioning to her shaky legs.

He gives her an imperious look. “You are summoned.”

“Am I?” she says, pertly, dragging a foot against the cold, hard stone that covers the floor (fear blossoms, but she stamps it down – _I am strong, Jarvis always said I was strong_ ). “By who, am I summoned?”

The alien narrows his eyes. “You will soon find out.”

_Great, riddle me this._

Toni sighs. “Oh, well. I’ve always wanted to say this.”

The alien cocks his head.

Her grin is all teeth.

“Take me to your leader.”

* * *

The alien marches her down cold hallways and aliens (she’s still trying to grasp _aliens_ ) mill around them, with the kind of sour fear that has them planting themselves against the wall and bowing their heads like they’re terrified.

Toni remembers a time like that for her. She collects each of their hungry, haunted, fear-flooded, limp looks like she’s collecting stones.

“So,” she begins, casually. “You got a name?”

He grunts at her, baring shining white, sharp teeth that is meant to make her stomach twist with fear – she’s not that soft, and she’s not that easy.

“That is not for you to know, woman,” he decides to say instead, cold and flat.

She lifts an eyebrow at him. “Woman?” she says, amused. “Are you trying to insult me?” She has the urge to beat his sulking face, so that he can see everything hard and ugly in her. “I could burn you in your bed.”

The alien looks startled.

She wields her triumph, her hunger like a knife, already half-sick with rage.

“That is what a woman can do, that is what a woman _is_. It’s not an insult,” she says, evenly, so he knows that there is blood in her slanting eyes, gleaming liquid-black in the dull light.

They come to a large door, cast in dark steel, and something in Toni’s stomach twists, not in fear, but in dread, in want, and she imagines herself as the sow for slaughter for whatever evil lies on the other side of those doors.

There is evil there, though.

She knows it; she doesn’t know how she knows it, but it’s there, under her skin, under her teeth, under bone and brain pulp, _she knows._

She’s not afraid.

The door swings open, revealing a throne room so cold that goosebumps pimple across her bare arms. She’s still naked, but no one seems to care, so neither does she.

Naked or clothed she may be, the bloodbath will follow all the same.

There are people in the throne room, one of his (her? she’s a little unsure of the gender-appropriate pronouns for aliens, if there are any) knees, but she only has eyes for the thing on the throne, high above all of them.

He’s built big, like a giant or a cyclops, with skin the colour of lavender and red, red eyes that gleam, sharp and savage. He has armour on, cast in gold, and his hands clench tight on the arms of his throne.

Toni stumbles at the sight of him.

Her mouth tastes coppery, like pennies, like blood.

There’s a shuddering sort of stillness that hangs in the air and Toni’s fingers dig into her wrist.

“Mercy, _mercy_ , my lord!” the one on his knees cries out.

There’s a wet squelch and the sharp edge of a spear slices through the alien’s body, like knife through warm butter, and the alien dies, crumpling to the stone floor like a kite cut from its strings.

“Hear me and rejoice.”

Toni’s eyes snap towards the Voldemort-like creature standing at the base of the steps leading up to the throne, peering at her with black, beady eyes, narrowed and filled with contempt.

“You stand in the presence of the Great Titan, Thanos, son of A’lars. Be honoured, you gaze upon a god.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “I’m Hindu,” she says, flatly. “And unimpressed.”

A tall female, in black armour, with pale blue skin like a corpse and dark war paint around her white eyes and blue hair hisses, hand fisting like a claw around her spear.

But the one sitting pretty on the throne, Thanos, merely smiles.

“Titankiller, Godkiller, Mother of Monsters.” Thanos shows his teeth. “Antonia Margaret Stark.”

There is nothing but silence.

“Am I… Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?” she asks, baffled and blinking. “Context is important, you know.”

Thanos stands, and all of his minions go abruptly still, waiting to rip her red, bleeding, beating heart out of her chest at his word, if she even has such a thing any longer, when they’ve hollowed out her entire chest, worse than the Ten Rings ever could, pulling out her ribs and her lungs and her heart and her kidneys and her intestines and her sinew and turned her into fucking Darth Vader.

The air is thick, heavy, until she can’t breathe anymore.

_No. NO._

Her would-be tears dry up in rage in a moment.

_I’ll be a corpse rotting under the sun before these evil cunts think they’ve gutted me._

He comes down the steps, superior and dignified, until he’s looming over her, red eyes dragging over her greedy-hot for one long, terrible second.

“I’ve seen you,” he rumbles, and one finger, thick as her whole wrist, traces her from hairline to collarbone, over the cool, raised metal, which makes her stomach twist. “And you’ve seen me.”

She remembers the Chitauri mothership, the deadliest of beginnings and the brightest of ends, the snap of the bones in her wrist, the corpse reaching for her, kissing her like a lover until she’s screaming, the ache in her belly at first glimpse of Thanos’ red eyes.

Oh, she’s seen him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, coldly.

His giant paw settles on her head, over her hair, with easy, unthinking familiarity that he is not allowed, his dark eyes shining with mirth.

“Denial is a cold comfort, sweet.”

Toni drags in air through her teeth at the endearment.

“It shan’t keep you warm at night.”

He releases her, and her pulse beats at an unsteady, angry rhythm.

Toni grits her teeth. “It was you,” she says, finally.

Thanos raises an eyebrow.

“You sent Loki, with the Tesseract.”

Curiosity blooms in his eyes.

“You sent him to kill us all.”

Thanos’ fist clenches and unclenches around air (she wonders if he imagines her neck in his grip to wring), but her eyes drop to the gauntlet that covers his hand, cast in rich, deep gold, and in particular, to the grooves in the gauntlet’s knuckles, the perfect size for a stone, and she thinks, _oh._

“That sceptre he had, Loki, you gave him that, didn’t you?” she says, dully.

Thanos flashes a warm grin at her, with teeth and bite and threat that makes her stomach curdle.

“It’s not just a sceptre, is it?” she sighs, ribs loosening.

“No,” Thanos sighs. “It’s not.” He raises his eyes, gaze rigid. “Leave us,” he orders.

“Father,” a woman steps forward, bald and blue and made of metal just like her chest (her stomach twists at the reminder – _no_ , he won’t make her falter, she won’t let him). “Perhaps that is not-”

“I _said_ ,” Thanos says, voice brooking no objection. “Leave us.”

The woman grits her teeth, hanging her head, before she steps away, with a green woman and the rest of Thanos’ entourage, leaving the throne room with great deference.

Thanos settles back against his throne, once they’re alone, and Toni shivers in the cold air, hating herself for the fleeting weakness.

He cocks his head. “You’re cold.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “I don’t dignify obvious statements with a response.”

Thanos finally narrows his red, red eyes, his fond, quiet amusement drying up in rage in an instant. “You are insolent,” he comments.

Toni shrugs. “That’s an understatement.” She sets her shoulders in a defensive slant. “So, the sceptre, what is it?”

The rage morphs back into amusement. “You think you have power to demand things of me, do you, sweet?”

“You sent away your groupies for a reason, I’m guessing,” Toni says, dryly. “You might as well make use of it.”

Thanos sighs and leans back on his throne. He taps against the stone arm with a heavy finger.

“The sceptre is no mere sceptre, yes,” he replies, vaguely.

Hunger blooms in her, and she leans in. “What is it?”

He smiles, his eyes and teeth flashing bright against his face. “What do you know of the infinity stones?”

Toni’s brow knits. “Infinity stones?” she repeats, biting her mouth raw.

Thanos hums. “Before creation itself, there were six singularities,” he tells her, solemn as the grave. “Then… well, the universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of those six singularities were forged into concentrated stones, hurtling across the virgin universe. Each stone represents one essential aspect of existence: space, mind, reality, power, time and soul.”

“The sceptre… it was one of these stones?” Toni guesses, breathlessly.

Thanos laughs at her want, like one would a child’s folly, and any pleasure she would have had at the wisdom is immediately soured.

“It was not one of the stones per se, but it did contain one of them,” Thanos explains.

“Which one?” she asks, pertly.

She’s never had much fear for her life, for her own protection, not when she has an appetite for everything, an appetite she indulges in without shame; she sees it in his eyes, too, the red-black of thickening blood, the hunger, the want, greed, for everything, to eat up everything, be it sin and love and knowledge and hate and morality and death and sanity and life.

But Antonia Margaret Stark is nothing more than a dead star now, leaching and leaching.

What is Thanos, son of A’lars, the Great Titan against that?

“The mind stone,” she says, licking her dry mouth. “Right? That’s the one the sceptre was.”

Thanos blinks, as if he didn’t think humans could possibly be that smart.

Toni lifts an eyebrow, full of scorn. “The thing literally hypno-rayed everyone that Loki non-consensually fondled with it, and you think I wouldn’t guess that it had something to do with the mind?” she asks, baldly, her smile thin as a blade.

Thanos leans back, and all she sees is everything hard and ugly in him.

“You are not what I thought you would be,” he says, after a moment.

“You had ideas on what I would be?” she demands, the set to her shoulders suggesting ease (he doesn’t get fear from her).

“I did.”

“How?”

Thanos smirks, faintly, eyes cool and sharp. “How do you think?”

“The mind stone,” she edges out.

“Perhaps,” he says, vaguely.

She feels that rush of hot, liquid anger. “If you’re just going to play head games-”

“What?” Thanos asks, smoothly, eyes gleaming with threat. “What do you plan on doing, Antonia?”

Toni grits her teeth and looks away, her scowl the stuff of legends. When she looks back, her eyes are like stone, shooting him a baleful look. “You knew me, when I got here. You called me Antonia Margaret Stark, plus a couple of other sobriquets that I want to address a little later. How’d you know my name? It’s not like I was carrying my driver’s license with me when you snatched me out of space.”

Thanos wields only a smile.

She wonders if he finds her foolish or brave or clever, or an awful mix of the three.

“The mind stone has told me many things,” he says, eyeing her evenly. “But so have the other infinity stones. They speak to me of you, Antonia Stark. You are no ordinary woman, no ordinary human, no ordinary being.”

Toni’s dark eyes shine with mirth. She’s always been good at smiling through outrageous circumstance.

“Is that so?” she asks, flatly.

Thanos gives her a fond, rueful look. “You will learn.”

“Learn what?” Toni demands.

His eyes are heavy with age and greed, and he doesn’t say a word.

Toni tangles a hand in her hair. “Why are you telling me this?” she asks, featherlight but laden with warning.

Thanos sighs. “Perhaps to change things, to learn things, to own things, I do not know.”

“You called me Titankiller,” Toni says, slyly, through her eyelashes. “Am I your death, Thanos?”

His gaze turns hateful, venomous, fingers flexing on his throne, as if he meant to crush the life out of her.

She’d fight, even thought it’d be hopeless in the end; she’d fight and she’d claw and she’d take as much of him with her as she could, but she’d lose and she knows it.

She’d rather live, frankly.

He laughs, hollow, sliding to his feet with much grace, grace she wouldn’t have thought of him with his great, hulking frame. “You intrigue me, Antonia Stark. I would keep you here with me.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “Why?”

Thanos’ face takes on a pinched, thin look. “Because that is what I want. _You_ are what I want. I am rarely denied what I want, Antonia.”

Toni dwells on that thought, _you are what I want_ , and grinds into her molars.

She can feel the weight of his gaze, prodding at all of her masks and walls, rubbing her down like sandpaper until her insides are laid bare.

She lifts her chin, defiantly.

He crosses the leagues that lie between them, the air thick, heavy, until she can’t breathe anymore, prickling at her skin, at the fine hairs over the nape of her neck.

This isn’t her death, she feels it, she _knows_ it.

He stares down at her.

She’s more aware than ever of his giant paws, solid chest, and the way he looks at her, impossible and dangerous.

Time slows and stretches.

She hears her heartbeat in her ears.

“Come,” he says, and time snaps.

Her lungs work again, and she sways.

It sours her expression further, his command.

“Why? Where?” she asks, pertly.

Thanos gives her a look that would make a lesser being shrink away, turn white as milk.

Ty used to give her that look, the look that promised she might not have teeth come the next hour if she continued with her belligerence; she’s vaccinated now.

“I said,” Thanos looks at her, sharp enough to take out an eye. “ _Come_.”

She does as he asks, more out of a desire to keep her head than true fear, padding alongside him through the cavernous whatever-this-place-is.

“Where am I?” she asks, in the corridor, without preamble.

Thanos doesn’t look at her. “Sanctuary,” he answers.

Toni snorts. “Sanctuary?” she repeats, filled with scorn. “That’s a little sanctimonious, don’t you think?”

Thanos’ mouth thins. “I provide shelter for those who seek something greater than themselves.”

“Power?” she guesses.

Thanos stares at her, low and intimate, in a way that makes her stomach curdle.

“Providence.”

* * *

He takes her through the stone halls of his home, his base, his ship, whatever the fuck this place is, and Toni follows, because she has no choice.

He’s leashed her to him, for the moment, anyway.

“Your rooms,” he says, once they’ve stopped outside a wrought-iron door.

“Much obliged,” she says, dryly. She lifts an eyebrow. “I’m guessing I’m a prisoner?”

Thanos flashes her the edge of a smile, a lethal thing that makes her stomach curdle. “It would be unwise to leave, yes.”

“I’ll try my best,” she says, mockingly.

Her lungs stop working when one fat, purple finger touches her cheek.

“There was never anyone but you for me,” he murmurs, almost awed. “I see it now.”

She shakes with rage, like a vat of wildfire. _I am going to eat your soul._

He leaves her then, and she slinks inside, shutting the door behind her and falling back against it. She collapses then, burying her face in her knees.

Then, she screams.

* * *

“Up. Get up!”

Toni startles awake when something is thrown at her. Her eyes ache, damp and gauzy, and she refuses to acknowledge why that is, instead choosing to focus on the dirk in her lap, which had magnificently managed to land on top of her without slicing her up like a cheese grater.

Her eyes move from the sword, gleaming black as stone, to the blue-skinned woman standing in the doorway.

“Father says you’re to learn to fight,” the woman says, coldly.

Toni stumbles off the cot and is glad that pain no longer blooms in her throat and chest and stomach with every breath she dares to swallow down. She touches her chest, over raised, beaten metal.

Her heart no longer beats.

She shakes.

She lifts her eyes. “I know how to fight,” she replies, thinly.

The woman sneers. “You fight like a human. That makes you weak.”

She has the sudden urge to smack the bitch right in the face and see if she still thinks she’s weak, fist clenching and unclenching around air, but she keeps still – it takes everything inside her.

“Come,” the woman says, coldly. “I will train you.”

She flashes a smile at the woman, sharp and sudden and strident. She imagines crushing the life out of her, her hands around her throat, a harpy-grip that even an alien couldn’t free herself from.

And they call her _weak_.

“Lead on.”

* * *

“You got a name?” Toni asks, smoothly, matching the alien’s stride.

The alien glowers at her. “Nebula,” she admits, grudgingly.

“A cloud of interstellar gas and dust,” Toni nods. “It suits you.”

Nebula’s black gaze turns on her. “It does not suit me,” she hisses, like spitting venom. “I am _not_ a cloud of interstellar gas and dust.”

“Really, are you sure?” she asks, innocently.

Nebula seethes, gripping the hilt of her sword. “You should keep your mouth shut.”

“Yeah, well, bite me, Avatar.” Toni sneers.

Nebula doesn’t say anything, but she’s taut in her rage, her hands shaking. But after a moment, she speaks. “What does that mean, Avatar?” she asks, haltingly.

Toni falters – that wasn’t the question she was expecting. “It’s a movie,” she explains, slowly. “about blue-skinned aliens.”

Nebula’s face screws up. “And you watch this for entertainment?”

“Well, the ass spent like ten years trying to make the damn film; of course, I was going to watch it.” Toni scowls, shaking her head.

Nebula narrows her eyes. “You are a very strange being.”

Toni shrugs, dwelling on that. “I’ve been called worse things.”

* * *

The sword clatters.

Toni hits the ground with a wheeze.

“Shit,” she gasps, and thinks, oh, this is the point when the arc reactor, her arc reactor, will dig hard into her lungs, into her ribs, into her sternum, and she’ll hack up blood, because something’s gone _wrong_ , she’s not supposed to be so careless with it, with _herself_ now _-_

-and she scrabbles for the reactor, fingers curved like claws, but she only finds smooth metal where there had been soft, scarred skin and the familiar _thunk_ of the arc reactor.

She laughs herself to almost tears.

Nebula looms over her.

“You’re passable,” she declares. “But slow.”

“Yeah,” Toni manages to stumble to her feet. “I’m human.”

Nebula eyes her chest, and not in a fun way. “Not quite,” she says, with the mute and mocking grin of a skull (Natasha had smiled at her like that, once, the smile of those who underestimate her).

Rage floods at the reminder and she grips the hilt of her sword.

“Again,” Nebula says, lifting her own weapon, an electric baton that stung like a bitch.

Toni swings the sword, like a staff, like how Ana had taught her a long time ago, and Nebula blocks. And so goes the dance, until Toni’s bruised and pale, and she finally manages to deal a blow with the sharp edge of her blade.

Whatever Nebula is, she isn’t made of flesh and bone, not when Toni strikes her, and the metal of her body contorts and warps. Nebula reels back and clutches at her arm, her deformed arm, an unfathomable look in her black, black eyes.

Toni wonders if she’s hurt, if there are nerves there.

She touches her chest, and a phantom knife twists in her gut, when it doesn’t hurt, no matter how much she presses, how hard she digs her nails in.

She _wants_ it to hurt, damn it.

“Satisfactory,” Nebula finally says, and lifts her eyes.

Toni swallows, thickly, raising her weapon. “You want more,” she says, smoothly. “Or have you had enough?”

Nebula’s mouth thins. “Oh, I never have enough.”

* * *

When they stumble from the training hall, Toni looks savaged, but she is not a woman made to cripple under wounds.

Toni wears her bruises proud.

She has _always_ worn her bruises proud.

Ty, Obadiah, the Ten Rings, Thanos, Nebula, what does it matter, they are all the same monster in her eyes, and they are slain like dogs in the end, all the same.

Nebula’s arm isn’t the only part of her that are misshapen, and it comes then, the clever, curious hunger that Toni is and has, under human, useless skin and bone and flesh.

“You’re a bitch,” Toni decides.

Nebula rolls her eyes. “I’m making you stronger. You might have some gratitude,” she sneers.

Toni’s grin is sharp, a lethal thing, all rage and spite (she imagines the sword in her hands falling on Nebula’s blue neck, parting her head from her shoulders as easy as a knife through butter). “You and your father have the same, fucked-up sense of gratitude.”

Nebula’s dark eyes are hooded, sharp and savage, contorted with rage. “Watch how you speak of my father,” she snarls.

“Or what?” Toni demands, hard and ugly. “What are you gonna do to me?”

Nebula grits her teeth.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, vicious and proud. “Something tells me Daddy Dearest wouldn’t like it if you marked up special cargo too much.”

Nebula looks as though she’d wring her throat then and there. “I will escort you back to your rooms,” she says, voice strained. “You are to remain there until someone calls on you.”

“Yeah, I know how kidnapping works,” Toni says, breathlessly, and follows her.

* * *

Thanos comes to her.

He offers her an arm to take, all gentleman-like.

She disappoints him.

“Nebula took you to a training room,” he says, heavily.

“I’m sorry, was that a question?” Toni asks, belligerently.

Thanos shakes his head. “You are insolent. Nebula will soon fix that.”

“Not fucking likely,” Toni mutters.

Thanos stares right ahead. He leads her through the winding corridors, cold and still and stinks of death, and they finally come up on a window, the size of an auditorium.

Toni’s heart stops working.

“Oh,” she whispers.

She touches the glass, parting her from the resplendence of the space outside, stars, like a spilled line of salt and sugar in the sky, the gleaming rings of planets and blinding suns.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Thanos rumbles from behind her. “The majesty of this universe.”

“Why are you showing me this?” she asks, her lungs in her throat.

“To show you what needs to be done for us to keep this.”

Toni rounds on him. “What are you talking about?” she demands.

Thanos simply smiles at her, like one would a kitten (sweet but not threatening), cloying and full of sharp white teeth, like swords.

“Come, sweet, I shall show you everything.”

* * *

He takes her to a planet, Rajak, he calls it, arm in arm. His soldiers, his _children_ (as he fondly calls them; his _slaves_ , she thinks of Nebula, of Gamora), the filthy things they call the Chitauri that she’d fought in New York (she itches to kill at least one of them), they gather up the planet’s people like clueless sheep to a cruel shepherd, who look human as Toni is (she’s having second thoughts about that now, post non-consensual body modification and the swell of hate and dread and death when Thanos’ red eyes, evil eyes meet hers) but with silver tattoos crawling up their face like webbing.

“Praise be,” the Voldemort creature says, smoothly (Ebony Maw, Thanos calls him).

There’s death all around them, the corpses of men and women and children, too bold, too proud to submit littering the ground, and Toni’s ears still ring with the screams. Her eyes cloud and sting with smoke and ash and dust, and she’s as pale as a wraith.

“Choose a side, or die,” Ebony Maw continues. “One side is a reservation, the other an honour only known to few.”

 _Honour, honour? This is genocide, you piece of shit_ , she wants to spit, she wants to rend his skin from his flesh.

She will, she will. She stares at the empty-eyed corpse of a boy no older than ten lying at her feet and thinks, swears, _I will, I will kill him for this, I will kill all of them._

“Now, go in peace and meet your maker.”

Thanos stands beside her, her arm looped through his like she is his lady love, and she shakes with grief and rage in equal measure. 

A Chitauri pig has a meaty, rotting hand around the bird-bone thin arm of a girl dragging her to one of the mobs. She shouts, the girl, full of fire, and fights, grappling with the Chitauri who refuses to let her go, tears, hot and fierce in her eyes.

“No, no!” Toni finally screams, lunging forward to grapple for the girl, this little girl, only four or five with eyes like blackcurrants (she remembers Sharon, she remembers herself, she thinks of all the daughters she will never have). “Let her go! Let her go, you fucking cunt! Let her go, or I’ll kill you. I’ll peel you like a grape. I’ll string you up by your insides. I’ll, I’ll-”

Thanos’ large arm settles around, pulling her against his barrel of a chest. He hushes her like he would a kitten, smoothing back her hair.

“This is mercy, sweet. I would give them an honourable death,” he says, gently, like a lover would (her stomach curdles at the thought). “This is necessary.”

“This is murder,” she says, dully, scrabbling against him like a bear in a trap, her nails digging and tearing wherever she might.

_There’s no honour in herding them like cattle and culling the lot of them._

“This is righteous,” he says, and that is that.

The Chitauri raise their weapons and Toni’s ears ring with the shrill, piercing sound of screams and death. The little girl is last to fall, and she hits the ground with a dull thud of impact. Her black eyes open and blank, pale and numb, her insides streaking the ground.

Toni memorises her face, her screams of rage and death.

She watches all of it, she watches half this planet die at Thanos’ hand, he strokes her hair through it all and he calls this _righteous_.

He thinks this is _providence._

She’s going to cut out his red, bleeding, beating heart out of his chest and feed it to him.


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Gamora" square (E3) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Thanos' stupid justifications for genocide, Thanos' creepy, obsessive behaviour, PTSD, aftermath of non-consensual body modifications, panic attacks, Thanos assaulting Toni by pulling her by the hair.

Toni follows Thanos, meekly, onto the Sanctuary.

Gamora, Nebula’s sister, falls at her side. “Are you alright?” she asks, her voice low.

“I’m fine,” she says, faintly.

Gamora’s pale yellow eyes, limpid and the colour of sunflowers, search her. Her thin fingers, green, clamp down like a vice around the bones in Toni’s wrist, thin as a toothpick.

“This was necessary,” she rushes out, as if encouraging her, begging her, to believe her hollow words, her hollow excuses.

Toni stares at her, full of scorn. “You’re lying,” she says, flatly. “I have no use for liars.”

She tears her arm out of Gamora’s grasp and walks on.

Nebula’s black eyes gleam like stone as she falls into step.

* * *

Thanos sends everyone away but for her.

“Leave us,” he says, like ice splitting.

His children fade from the room, slipping away like wraith.

Toni lifts her eyes. “You killed all those people,” she says, flatly, raw-eyed.

Thanos cocks his head. “That was mercy.”

Toni sneers. “Bullshit.”

Thanos fingers his double-bladed sword, flat and wide like a razor blade. “Anyone else who spoke to me the way you speak to me would lose their head,” he muses. “See the kindness I show you?”

Ty used to say similar things to her. _See how much I love you, see how good I am to you, no one could or would love you like I do._

“You killed all those people,” she repeats, lifting her chin.

“I did,” Thanos agrees. “It was mercy.”

“I’m sorry, I must’ve missed it when Webster _redefined_ mercy, because I’m pretty sure genocide isn’t a fucking synonym for it.”

“Genocide,” Thanos’ eyes gleam. “Is that what you think that was? You think I came to some planet, saw a skin colour, a religion, a way of life, a gender I didn’t like and decided to mow them down for my own ego?” he asks, curiously.

Toni shakes, fists clenching. “What else could it be?”

“Like I said,” he says, gently. “Mercy.”

Toni bites her lip, hating the way her eyes edge with tears (tears, what a fucking joke, it won’t bring all those people back to life). “You and I have very different definitions of what _mercy_ is.”

“I know,” he says, heavily. “But it was necessary.”

“Why?” she all but begs, rage flooding up like bile.

Thanos sighs and climbs to his feet. “Come with me.” He offers a giant paw.

She takes it; choice is an illusion within these cold walls.

Thanos leads her to that window, in all of its clever, curious, hungry glory. This time around, when she looks out onto the tender, tragic, beautiful sight on the other side of the glass, all she sees is dead, hollow stars and an abyss leaching.

“You thought it beautiful before,” Thanos remarks.

“I did,” she says, cautiously.

“One day, and one day soon, it will stop being beautiful. We will claw the stars out, one by one, because that is what we are: hungry, greedy, selfish.”

“So, you hate people?” Toni guesses, a little sceptically.

“I think we are many,” Thanos sighs. “and this universe is less than us. That beauty, the beauty out there, will not remain if we continue to grow. The more mouths this universe has, the hungrier we get and the less this universe can bear us.”

“So, you offer genocide as a solution,” Toni says, slowly.

Thanos frowns. “Indiscriminate, unselfish death, to save this universe. If I do not make this choice now, today, someone will make a worse decision tomorrow.”

“You’re a saviour,” Toni says, full of scorn. “Our saviour, the only one with the stomach to do what needs to be done.”

Thanos turns red-as-blood eyes onto her. “My own people called me a madman, but what I foretold, came to pass. I survived, I survived and swore a vow that I would not let Titan’s fate be the fate of any other planet, of this universe.”

“And you think that _justifies_ you?” Toni demands.

Thanos looks at her, full of disappointment. “What cause could be more noble, more honourable? Everything I do, I do in service of this universe, of all its beings.”

“Killing half of everyone alive isn’t _saving_ this universe, it’s _quelling_ it,” Toni bites out.

Thanos’ mouth quirks up in a half-smile. “You’re a woman of progress, Antonia Stark. A futurist.”

Toni grinds her teeth. “I believe everyone has a right to survive, to _thrive_ , and anything short of that, anything that diminishes that, anything that seeks to _destroy_ that, should be destroyed in turn.”

“The universe will live on,” Thanos points out.

“But we’ll still keep growing, keep breeding, keep eating and keep living,” Toni insists. “Are you going to do this endlessly?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Thanos says, hard as stone.

“I think monster is a kinder word than you deserve,” Toni says, flatly.

Thanos’ hand goes to her throat and panic claws in her chest, thinking _this is it, this is where he kills me_.

He smooths a thick, purple thumb over her pulse point.

“I will save all of us,” he rumbles. “And you will help me.”

Toni reaches up to grip his wrist, as much as she can. “Like hell I am,” she spits.

Thanos gives her a look of grief. “Choice is an illusion, sweet.”

* * *

“He did that to my planet,” Gamora says, suddenly, when she brings a meal for Toni.

The food is fleshy and pale and when she takes a bite, it reminds her of well-cooked pasta, topped with chilli.

“What?” Toni asks, lifting her eyes.

Gamora gives her a measured look. “What my father did to Rajak, he did to my planet.”

Toni looks down at her lap. “Oh,” she says, lamely.

“Zen-Whoberi,” Gamora continues. “The name of my planet. The Zehoberei, the name of my people. Thanos came, with his children, with his soldiers, when I was a girl, not older than the one that died at your feet in Rajak. My mother, my father, aunts and uncles, the man who sold us bread, all dead, for Thanos’ purpose. He promises half will survive, wherever he goes, but half didn’t survive when he came to Zen-Whoberi.” Gamora’s hands shake. “Only I did.”

Toni tangles her fingers together in her lap; any and all words are too big, too heavy to leave her tongue.

“So, you see,” Gamora gives her a sour smile. “I understand.”

* * *

Toni ducks the blow Nebula sends her with the baton, crackling, as it narrowly misses the soft flesh of her throat. The next strike, she blocks, and she dips low, sweeping Nebula’s legs out from underneath her. Nebula lands on the ground with a dull thud, and she bares white teeth at Toni, lurching back onto her feet.

“Not bad, human girl,” she drawls.

Toni shrugs (she doesn’t pant, anymore; she fights faster, easier, better, longer than she ever thought a human possible; she wondered how she’d do up against Steve Rogers now). “I have a good teacher,” she says, slyly.

“Again,” Nebula demands.

Toni rolls her eyes and raises her sword, lunging forward. Nebula blocks, kicking out at her in a clean line, much like a dancer. Her foot catches her in her stomach, the black, scaled armour that is now her torso. 

It doesn’t hurt.

She stumbles back, though, because Nebula is strong, catching her footing before she falls. She grits her teeth and swings back, ducking Nebula’s curled fist, and her sword cracks against her arm, making Nebula shout and pull back. Toni withdraws her hand, sharply, when Nebula’s arm warps.

“Are you okay?” she asks, lowly.

Nebula grinds her teeth. “I’m fine,” she growls. “Keep going.”

“Your arm, it’s…” Toni trails off, reaching out in concern.

“I’m fine,” Nebula barks at her, curling in on herself. “It’s defective. I’ll fix it later. Keep going.”

“You’re not _fine_ ,” Toni snaps, in equal measure. She reaches for Nebula’s arm, gripping it between her thin fingers. “Let me take a look.”

“Don’t touch me,” Nebula hisses, fist clenching and unclenching.

“Nebula,” Toni says, patiently, giving her a measured look. “Let me take a look.”

Nebula’s dark eyes, like opals, narrow. “Why?” she demands, suspiciously.

“Because you’re hurt. I hurt you,” Toni says, gently. “Let me help.”

“I’m not weak,” Nebula blurts out. “I’ve sustained many injuries, and I-”

“So have I,” Toni murmurs, fingers reaching for the hollow between her breasts and finding only metal, not an arc reactor, _fuck_ (her hands shake). Her lips quirk in a half-smile, while a knife twists in her gut. “A friend of mine, he once told me that I didn’t have to do this alone.”

“This?” Nebula queries.

“Everything,” Toni says.

The knife twists further, at the mere thought of Rhodey.

She won’t see him again, she knows.

It’s alright, at night, in that dank little cot, alone, she can scream and rage. And one day, she’ll eat Thanos’ heart and she’ll feel better.

Nebula shakes her head. “All I’ve done since you came here is assault you; why would you help me?” she asks.

“Did you do it because of Thanos?”

“My father instructed me to train you, yes,” Nebula replies, cautiously.

Toni shrugs. “I’d rather blame the evil man sitting pretty on his throne than the woman on the ground doing his evil bidding.”

Nebula scowls. “I don’t _do_ his bidding.”

“You do,” Toni says, sympathetically. “It’s okay, you’ve been Stockholmed. We can fix it.”

Nebula’s brow knits. “Stockholmed, what is that?”

Toni sighs. “I’ll explain it to you when you’re older,” she teases. “Now, let me take a look at your arm.”

Nebula goes along at Toni’s urging to the side of the training chamber, taking a seat beside her. Toni props Nebula’s deformed arm in her lap, running her fingers over the sleek blue metal, much like her own chest.

“What would you know of my arm?” Nebula asks, quietly. “You’re just human.”

“Maybe so,” Toni replies, easily. “But engineering is my make and game, so if there’s anyone on this ship who’s got a chance at helping you out with this, it’s probably me.”

Nebula snorts. “I can’t imagine that Earth technology compares to this.”

Toni hums in agreement. “Earth technology, yeah, maybe not.” She lifts her eyes, black beneath her eyelashes. “My technology, baby, you ain’t seen what I’m capable of.”

Nebula’s dark eyes gleam.

* * *

“Stop moving,” Toni snaps.

“It’s uncomfortable,” Nebula grits out.

“Yeah, I know, it might be because I’ve got a sharp object lodged in your arm,” Toni retorts. “Now, stop moving, I’m almost done.”

She slips the thin edge of her tool under the last wire in Nebula’s forearm, a firm grip on her wrist. She pulls it taut, fixing it to the wall of the prosthetic (the colour had leached out of her face, when she’d opened up Nebula’s arm, and she wondered, _is this what I look like now, is my heart just biosynthetics and cold, dead wires?_ ). It goes without issue, and Toni snaps her arm back into place, leaning back with that golden swell of pride, curdled sour a little by the lack of a heart beating, lungs pumping in her chest.

All she is, is empty on the inside.

“There you go,” she drawls.

Nebula raises her arm, peers at it carefully, twisting it to se it from all angles. “You are proficient,” she remarks, almost surprised.

Toni shrugs, lazy and semi-blissful. “Told you,” she says, kindly. “You ain’t seen what I’m capable of.”

Nebula half-smiles, fleetingly; it doesn’t come easy and is sharp like a naked sword. “I may have underestimated you, Antonia.”

“Toni,” Toni says, suddenly. “You can call me Toni.”

Nebula inhales. “Toni, then.”

* * *

Thanos lingers in her doorway.

She has armour now, the same shade and scale of her armour, enveloping her arms and legs. It’s a fleeting comfort, to not stand there naked in front of this monster who butchers planets and kidnapped her right out of the stars.

“What do you want?” she demands, hard as stone.

“Come with me,” he says, voice brooking no argument.

“If you’re going to show me another genocide, it’s not my thing,” Toni points out.

“I want to show you what we are working towards,” Thanos says, simply.

“Killing half the universe, you mean?”

Thanos’ lip curls, self-deprecating. “Saving them. I will save them. _We will._ Now, come.”

Toni follows after him, knowing that he’d just sling her over her broad, barrelled shoulder if she refused him (he’d done it before, when he thought she was misbehaving like a child).

He brings her to his throne room, where the members of his Black Order are gathered. She knows their names now, their evil eyes, she feels it licking at her toes, in her dreams: Corvus Glaine, Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw.

Nebula and Gamora are off to the side, family but not family.

Thanos sits on his great iron throne. His hand reaches for her, pulling her to her side, letting her take a seat on the flat armrest, gingerly.

“I have come to the conclusion that our great crusade is not possible, not with us alone,” Thanos rumbles.

Ebony Maw steps forward. “Sire, we have already-”

“No,” Thanos says, heavily, cutting off all other words. “I have made my decision. I will seek the infinity stones, all of them. Their combined might could do in a single instant what would take all of us centuries to accomplish. We have no other choice, if we want to live and see this through.”

Toni snorts, drawing attention to her. “Bold of you to assume that any of you will still be living by the end of this.”

_Because if the infinity stones don’t do their job, I’ll do it. I’ll kill you all._

Proxima Midnight’s hand tightens around her spear. “You will be silent,” she growls.

“Fucking make me, Xenomorph,” Toni snarls.

Proxima bares her teeth.

“Enough,” Thanos says, grimly. “I won’t have discord, not in our house. Leave us.”

The Black Order, in particular, are displeased by Thanos’ order, but leave nonetheless with Nebula and Gamora. Toni wonders if they think she might stab him in the eye, if left alone, but as tempting as the idea is, she’s not that foolish to kill him so quickly, not when she doesn’t have a plan to get the hell out of dodge and back to Earth.

Thanos’ hand settles on top of her head. “You think me cruel,” he says.

“I think you’re evil,” Toni corrects.

“I want this, not for my own greed, my own lust for war or death, but out of necessity,” Thanos explains, thinly.

He begs her with his eyes.

She has no mercy for him.

“I don’t know why you can’t seem to understand what I’m doing here,” Thanos says, gruffly, indignantly. “All I have tried to do is show you what must be done, what _we_ must do. The stones have showed me the truth, have showed me what we must do. You are my Black Bride, Antonia. I would have you by my side when I do this, when I rid the universe of its greed. Do not forsake me, Antonia. I have waited for you for a long time.”

“Your _Black Bride_?” Toni says, incredulously. “Do you even hear yourself?”

Thanos climbs to his feet, storming down from his throne.

“Do I look like someone who is a _black bride_?” Toni demands. “If your stones showed you anything of me, then, you would know that I can’t, I _won’t_ allow this. And I will kill you, if that’s what it takes, if that’s what _I_ must do.”

Thanos gives her a strained, stricken smile. “I've known a thousand just like you,” he says, almost fondly. “All righteousness and virtue and fire.” 

Toni smiles, all threat and teeth and promise. “There is no one like me. Only me.”

“Yes, only you.” Thanos agrees, easily. “But killing me will not end so easy, not for you and not for this universe. You may try, because I know you will do nothing else but try, and you may succeed, but everything I tell you now, everything I promise you, will come to pass. I swear it. You can’t stop this, even with my death.”

“You underestimate me and what I’m capable of,” Toni says, coldly.

“I don’t,” Thanos says, fiercely, like he’s lovesick for her and everything she’s done, and it makes her want to vomit. “You are many things, my love, but this universe’s redemption is not one of them.”

Toni’s pulse throbs painfully. “My _love_?” she chokes out.

Thanos stares at her, hungry and haunted, and he touches her hair, moving it from her eyes. “Who else could there be for me, but you, my Black Bride?”

Bile rises in her throat, sour and bitter. “Don’t you _dare_ call me that,” she says, so hateful, so venomous.

Thanos blinks at her, owlishly. “They are not _my_ stones, you know. I did not make them,” he says, slowly. “You think I have manufactured this. You think I made a fantasy, a legend where I belonged to you and you belonged to me. You are wrong. The stones belong to this universe and there is nothing but truth in them. You can deny it all you like, my love, but this is what the universe has for us, _each other_.”

Toni lets her composure slip, lets him see the rage that wells up inside her like a floodgate is breaking, her hands shaking by her hips. 

“I don’t belong to _anyone_ ,” she says, ugly and visceral. “I would kill anyone and everyone that tried to put a leash on me. If those _stones_ are nothing but truth, you would know that.”

Thanos touches her cheek. She resists the urge to swat it away.

“You will learn,” he says, solemnly.

* * *

Thanos’ version of a Small Council meets on an asteroid belt, the offshoot of Sanctuary.

Something fists between her ribs when she steps out of the spaceship and drags in air into her lungs without any grief whatsoever.

“What is it?” Nebula demands.

“I can breathe,” Toni says, slowly.

“Yes, and?”

“Humans can’t breathe in space, Nebula,” Gamora says, thinly, approaching them.

Nebula shoots her sister a baleful look. “I _know_ that, Gamora,” she snaps.

“So, then, you would understand why she might be shocked that she can breathe, stepping out of the spaceship,” Gamora retorts.

“Actually, it did occur to me to ask why I could breathe _inside_ the spaceship,” Toni murmurs.

“Sanctuary II can be regulated for various air pressures,” Gamora says, kindly. “It was modified when you came to us.”

“And now?” Toni shakes. “Considering we’re not in the warship anymore, and in actual space now?”

Gamora’s eyes drag down to her chest, and for a brief moment, Toni thinks she’s staring at her arc reactor before she remembers, _I don’t have that anymore_ , and then realises, _oh, my chest._

“What does it do?” she asks and hates how her voice hollows. “The body armour, what does it do?”

“It’s more than just body armour,” Gamora says, solemnly.

She remembers the squelch of hands in her chest cavity, the wet ripping sound of her heart and her lungs and everything else there being pulled from her body, the stifling emptiness she’d felt when she first opened her eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” Toni says, flatly. “What is it?”

Nebula narrows her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Yeah, well, I’m very good at avoidance, so, talk.”

“It goes right through,” Gamora says. “Your chest… well, there’s no chest anymore.”

Her stomach twists. “Yeah, I sort of knew that already. So, you, uh,” bile rises in her throat. “you took everything out? Like my heart, my lungs, my intestines, my liver, my gall bladder, my ribs. All of it, is it gone?”

She shakes, like a vat of wildfire.

“Our father, he wanted to know more about the device in your chest,” Nebula says, solemn as the grave. “He found you malfunctioning and deficient with it inside, so he thought to-”

“-to upgrade me,” Toni says, coldly. “Yeah? Because I needed an _upgrade_ ,” she sneers.

“He made you strong,” Nebula says, sternly. “Look at you now. You can run faster, climb higher, life more, fight better. He made you _better_.”

Toni grits her teeth. “Is that what he did to you?” she demands, the colour fleeing her face.

Nebula stills, face hollow. “Yes.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “I don’t believe you,” she says, cold and empty and flat. “So, this body armour, it lets me breathe, it lets me breathe in space, then?”

Gamora’s eyes are age-worn, much like her sister’s, much like Toni’s. “It lets you do a lot of things,” she says, quietly.

Toni looks down at the black scales, and her blood beats hot underneath her skin. She’d rip it from her body, have herself live with only bones and blood and failure if it meant she wouldn’t have any part of Thanos inside her, forging her. She has the sudden urge to weep and rage in equal measure, and a long, breathless second heaves against her non-existent lungs.

It should hurt, breathing, it always does, there’s always this vicious, proud ache that makes her want to fist her hands in her hair and scream, which she never, but it always hurt, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.

She wants it to hurt.

_I don’t want to learn about it, I don’t want to know anything about it, I want it gone, I DON’T WANT IT._

“We should go,” she says, thin and pinched. “He’ll be waiting, and I want to keep him waiting, so let’s go slow.”

Nebula glowers at her, but Toni catches the fleeting amusement flash through Gamora’s pale yellow eyes and considers it a victory.

“You were dawdling,” Thanos finally says, when they arrive, what with the Black Order milling about him, displeased at what Toni imagines they think is the three women’s collective belligerence.

Toni shrugs. “I don’t meet deadlines, deadlines meet me,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly.

Thanos narrows his eyes, and for a long, laden moment, Toni wonders if this is the moment, if this is where her good will runs out, if this is where fate and providence and all-seeing infinity stones cease to matter and Thanos wrings his throat.

She doesn’t fear, she doesn’t cringe; if he’s going to kill her, he can kill her and meet her eyes while he does so.

 _But he won’t_.

She doesn’t know how she knows, it’s a twist in her stomach, her bones ache, and she knows.

He won’t kill her.

Thanos turns his eyes to the stars above, eyes glazing over, without another word to her. “There are six Infinity Stones: the Space Stone, the Mind Stone, the Reality Stone, the Time Stone, the Power Stone and the Soul Stone.”

The last words make Toni’s ears ring.

“The Space Stone, it is currently on Earth,” Thanos says, directing a grim look at Toni, as if she could somehow manifest it into existence, into the palms of her hands, just by thinking. “The humans, they call it the Tesseract.”

Toni shudders.

“You’ve seen it,” Thanos says, casually.

“Unfortunately,” she sneers. “My father used to study it,” she remembers.

Thanos cocks his head.

“He thought…” Toni dims. “He thought it would save us all,” she confesses, her mouth full of dirt.

Thanos leans back on his throne. “And it will,” he declares.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, though. The last time I saw the Tesseract, it was being used to open up that portal for the Chitauri. Considering that it closed, I’m guessing the Avengers have it now.”

Thanos smiles like a naked sword. “Yes, the Other has told me of your little… group. To challenge them, is to court death, he said to me. Although…” he trails off, almost fond. “I think that only applies to you. You are the one that destroyed the Chitauri. Mother of Monsters, indeed.”

Toni snorts. “You must have forgotten the other five people on the squad list who can do way more damage than I can, namely the living god and the giant green rage-monster that tramples buildings.”

Thanos narrows his eyes. “They are not what the stones have shown me. Only you.”

 _Only you_.

The words leave goosebumps in their wake.

“The Space Stone is lost to us,” Thanos tells his Black Order. “For the meantime, at least, as is the Mind Stone. The humans from Earth are more resourceful than I originally thought they were. The Reality Stone, we know not where it is, hidden by the Asgardian, Bor, but it will come to us, it must come to us. The Time Stone is on Earth as well,” he says, amused. “It seems as if the humans hoard our treasure without even knowing.”

Corvus Glaine steps forward. “Send us to Earth, sire,” he begs. “Send us, and we shall raze it to the ground for you, and return with the stones. We shall show them no mercy.”

Toni thinks of Rhodey, of Pepper, of Happy, of Aunt Peggy and Sharon, and thinks, _fuck, no, I’ll kill you first._

“No,” Thanos decides, staring down at the gauntlet on his large hand. “The humans are vain, selfish, greedy creatures. They will be eaten up with their own foolishness soon enough. We simply have to be patient, and the stones will fall into my palm soon enough.”

Toni scowls. “If I’m so vain, selfish and greedy, and I’m not particularly arguing against that profile, then, why the fuck am I here?” she demands.

Thanos stares at her, limpid eyes gleaming with love. “You are nothing like them, my love, my bride. There is a god in your belly; all you have to do is birth her. And when I am done, when _we_ are done, you will be leader of this kingdom; who would conquer you?”

Toni’s going to put her sword through his eye and out the back of his skull.

“What happens, after?” she asks, then, stomach curdling. “What happens when you’re done?”

Thanos’ lip curls up, a mean little thing. “I go to my garden; I rest and watch the sunrise over a grateful universe.”

“You really think they’ll be grateful,” she says, disgusted. “After you’ve killed their brothers and sisters, their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters, their wives and husbands, people they love and want and hate and need? They’ll come for you, they’ll come for you with fire and rage and swords, and they’ll want you dead. There won’t be a garden, there won’t be a rest, there won’t be a sunrise, there won’t be a grateful universe, because there won’t be a _you_.”

Thanos gives her a look that cuts like a knife. Behind her, Proxima Midnight and the rest of her band hiss at her audacity. Beside her, Nebula and Gamora drop their gaze. Thanos lunges off his throne, storming towards her.

She is not afraid, she cannot be afraid.

He fists a hand in her hair, wrapping the rope of her braid around his thick palm, and marches off, dragging her along. Toni grits her teeth against the sting of her hair pulling, the indignity, the humiliation of being hauled away like she’s a doll, like she’s not even a living, breathing, beating being.

He’s not doing it to hurt, she realises quickly. If he wanted to hurt her, she fully imagines he could’ve torn the hair right off her scalp, but he doesn’t know his own strength, not against her. But she doesn’t forgive him for it, she doesn’t excuse him for it, she may even kill him for this injustice alone.

Finally, she manages to wrench herself free of his grasp, sending him a look of such unambiguous loathing.

“Don’t you touch me like that!” she says, viciously. “Don’t you _ever_ touch me like that!”

Ty did that once, he dragged her to her feet by the hair when she wouldn’t get up after he’d already hit her once. She’d never forgiven him for that, for hurting her, for wanting to humiliate her.

But she’d loved him through that, she’d loved him through every hit, every punch, every shove, every manhandle, every cruel, hate-filled word he might have said to her, and she loved him even after it.

But she doesn’t love Thanos, so nothing will save him for it.

Much to her disgust, Thanos has the nerve to look at her, hurt.

“I did not mean to-”

“You dragged me away by my fucking hair from your Legion of Doom to fucking _correct_ me because I said something you didn’t fucking like, like I’m some fucking pet or a doll or a fucking plaything, because you needed everyone to remember to that _you_ are the Big Man of Campus and that some mouthy little human bitch from Earth, even if she is your fucking mythical, mystical soulmate, isn’t going to undermine you in front of all your loyal followers,” she spits.

She reaches behind her, gripping the hilt of her sword until her knuckles turn white, grieving for the loss and the familiar whir of her repulsor, the pulse of the arc reactor, and the heat of the Unibeam.

The sword will have to do.

“If you touch me like that again, if you think to _correct_ me ever again, I will kill you,” she promises. “I don’t need any other graphic threats than that. If you touch me like that again, I’m going to kill you.”

She turns away, ready to stride, with all her dignity, back to the rest of the group, when his voice stops her.

“Tiberius Stone,” he muses. “I will bring you his head.”

Toni rounds on him. “Mind your own fucking business,” she growls.

Thanos cocks his head. “Why did you not kill him?” he asks, curiously. “You have had many chances; you have had much cause. You turned my army to dust. You could have taken him apart.”

_Because I loved him, because I love him, because he hurt me and I hate him for it, because I don’t know if I can live in this world without him._

“You wouldn’t understand,” Toni says, simply, her voice thin, like taut piano wire.

Thanos stares at her, unseeing and seeing everything.

“How do you… how do you even know his name? How do you know about him?” she demands.

“I know everything about you,” he says, slowly. “I know about Howard and Maria, about Edwin and Ana, about Margaret and John and Rebecca and Sharon, about Obadiah, about James and Ayushma and Tiberius. If I cracked you open, Antonia, only I would be able to read the words written on the inside of your skin. You still doubt me though.”

Toni laughs, hollow. “If you really knew me, if you knew anything about me, you’d know that the longer you keep me here, leashed like a fucking pet, the more fucked-up your death is going to be. Right now, I’m sort of leaning towards gutting you like a pig. Now, as riveting as our little pas de deux is, I think I’ve had my fill of talking to you, you unrepentant spore.”

Toni keeps her face mild when Thanos lays a hand on her head, even if something in her chest (not her lungs, never her lungs, not anymore) squeezes to tight at the gesture.

“You should be grateful that you are the other half of my existence,” he says, half amused, half warning. “Had anyone else been as belligerent to me as you are, things may have ended very differently for them.”

“I thank you for your restraint,” Toni says, dryly. “I mean, I really appreciate the emotional manipulation, like everything you do is for my benefit, right? Because you know what’s best for me, because you’re the only one who can take care of me, right? Because, without you, I am nothing, right?”

By the end, her voice had taken a dark, savage edge, like a beast.

Thanos just gives her a soft, sad look.

_I want you dead, I want your corpse at my feet, I want to put my sword through your stupid fucking heart and burn your insides out. I’m going to see you dead._

“I am _not_ nothing,” she says, coldly. “And I won’t ever want you. I won’t ever need you.”

Thanos’ look turns so hateful, so venomous. His hand falls on her shoulder and it hurts.

She grits her teeth.

“Come,” he says, voice brooking no argument.


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the "kink: concubine" (R2) of the Tony Stark Bingo 2020.
> 
> READ THE WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: implied/referenced past domestic violence, slavery, non-consensual sex between Toni and Thanos, forced orgasm.

“You think I don’t know you,” Thanos says, one day, approaching her vigil out the giant window of Sanctuary II, out into the space.

Sometimes, she wonders if they roll past Earth, so close, yet so far. She wonders if she’d jump out of some hatch in the spaceship, even if it meant dying amongst the stars, if it meant that she’d die somewhere close to Earth, to Rhodey, to Pepper, to Happy, to Peggy and Sharon.

“I’m not interested in having this discussion with you _again_ ; I make it a point to avoid those who don’t seem to get the _point_ ,” Toni waves off.

“You’re wrong,” Thanos continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I do know you well. I know how lonely you are.”

“How could I possibly be lonely if you or one of your minions are always stalking me?” Toni asks, sarcastically.

“You are deliberately being obtuse,” Thanos accuses.

“I just don’t want you to think that I’m giving weight to anything you say. It’s all just white noise to me, really.”

Thanos shakes his head. “You may not think it now, but you and I are the same, we are one person in two bodies.”

Toni rounds on him, gaping in disbelief.

“I was an outcast on Titan, my home planet,” he tells her, solemnly.

“Yeah, I know, because you wanted to kill half the planet. You’ve told me this before. I remember I wasn’t so impressed back then either.”

“No, even before I saw what needed to be done, my people hated me. I was born big, with my skin like animal hide and the colour of bruises. The very first time my mother laid her eyes on me, she was driven made and tried to wring my throat.”

Toni looks away, lest her see her flummoxed expression.

His mouth twists into a savage smile. “When you're born into a society of deities, imperfections have a way of standing out,” he murmurs. “My mother almost succeeded, but the midwives saved me from her evil hands. My people thought me evil, a death omen, something that promised their doom, but I loved them well enough anyway. And by the time I was an adolescent, I realised what would happen to Titan, to my people, the curse their greed for centuries and millennia had wrought upon them. I offered my solution. They decided I was a monster, crazed and cruel, and I was banished. While I was in exile, I learnt the fate that had befallen my people and my planet. Titan was devastated, and my people turned on each other in the wake of the ruin. The planet was left uninhabitable by the end of the conflict, and we went extinct. I am the last.”

He wants her to believe that he’s not evil, just hurt. 

_Bullshit_.

She levels him with a defiant look.

“I thought I was alone,” he says, wistfully. “I thought I was damned to walk this path alone, until the stones showed me you. You are the other half of me, Antonia. We were always meant to be.”

“I’m _nothing_ like you,” she swears.

“Aren’t you?” he asks, sadly. “I have seen a frail slip of a girl who wanted her father to _see_ here, but was met with only resentment and bile and tyranny.” He pauses. “He was weak.”

_Yes, he was. You remind me of him._

“And he wanted you to be as weak as he was. He knew you were strong, you were intelligent, and you were going to have and everything and anything, no matter what he denied you. And he died like that, thinking you could not fight; but all you are is fight, Antonia Stark.”

Toni’s dark eyes flash.

“Your mother tried; she tried very hard, but she did not understand you, did not want the girl you are. Tiberius Stone took one look at you and decided that only one of you could be a monument, but it could not be you; so, he ground you under his heel until there was nothing left, until you were brave enough to throw him away. Your godmother, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, they helped; they loved you, they fought for you, they bled for you, but they do not see you.” He takes a step forward. “I see you. I have always seen you, Antonia.”

His fat finger curls underneath her jawbone, tilting her head up.

“So, you see, we are the same.”

* * *

Toni finds herself in front of Thanos one day, hands behind her back, levelling him with a defiant look.

“You’ve killed twenty of my Chitauri warriors already,” he says, half amused.

Toni shrugs. “They were in my way, and they were weak, so I killed them.” Her eyes narrow. “I thought that was what you wanted me to do? Or was I mistaken?”

“You are not mistaken,” Thanos concedes. “I just had not thought you had begun to see things my way; at least, that is not what Nebula and Gamora tell me. My daughters have become your dear friends now.”

“I don’t think Nebula and Gamora have friends,” she says, coldly. “I don’t think you allow for it.”

Thanos blinks at her, faux-innocently. “It will keep them safe, in the long run.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “It will keep them pliant, you mean, if they have nothing else in this universe but you.”

Thanos narrows his eyes.

She leans forward, conspiratorially. “Ty was the same; he didn’t want me to have anything else but him. And when I wanted more than him, he used to beat me and call it love or my clumsiness.” She shakes her head. “So, you see, when you say things like we are meant for each other and we are one person in two bodies, I have seen your story again and again.”

Thanos doesn’t like that very much, being compared to her abusers, to the men who wanted her dragged down and turned into a corpse because she was better than them, because she would always be better than them.

“I want you to tell me about the Black Order,” she declares.

Thanos’ eyes.

* * *

Gamora eyes her. “You are some sort of idiot, aren’t you?”

Toni shrugs. “The jury’s still out.”

“Why would you want to know about _them_?” Gamora demands.

“Aren’t they like your siblings?” Toni retorts.

Gamora mouth thins into a hard line. “No.”

“Like Nebula isn’t?” Toni taunts.

Gamora’s eyes flash. “The Black Order isn’t like us, not like Nebula or me. They’ve been servants of his for years, since they were children and Thanos butchered their families, as he did mine and Nebula’s. But they love him for it, they hunger for what he gives them. You won’t find allies with them,” she warns her.

“But I’ll find them with you?” Toni lifts an eyebrow.

Gamora gives her a sharp, singular look, one that leaves her insides bare, and Toni looks away.

* * *

Proxima Midnight finds her in the training room one day, while Toni is trying her skill out against the Blood Brothers. She doesn’t spare them, and her sword slices cleanly through flesh and sinew, cutting off an arm, and then a head, and then two heads.

She isn’t panting when she’s done, even though she should be.

“What?” she asks, when she sees Proxima watching her, dark eyes tense.

“You are to accompany us,” she says, sternly.

Toni’s brow knits. “Where, and who is us?”

“Thanos has asked that we take you with us to the Black Quadrant.”

“Okay, what is the Black Quadrant, and who is us?”

“The Black Quadrant is a group of planets and moons near Titan,” Proxima explains, impatiently. “Us is the Black Order. Nebula and Gamora will join us as well.”

“Okay,” Toni says, slowly.

Proxima eyes her like a cockroach. “You asked to come with us.”

 _So I know what makes you weak, so I know to kill you_.

“I did,” Toni agrees.

“So, come.”

Toni lifts her eyebrow. “I’m not allowed to ask questions.”

“No.”

 _Bitch_ , she decides.

* * *

Toni watches the silent band of aliens: Proxima, Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, and Nebula and Gamora, as they strap themselves into a sleek bit of metal that can fly through space.

“So,” she calls out, just to make them twist their head and glower at her (she feeds on their spite). “Is anyone going to tell me what the fuck we’re doing just limboing in the stars?”

Corvus Glaive’s glower turns murderous. “Keep your mouth shut,” he warns.

“Or what?” Toni threatens.

“Or I might sew it shut for you.”

“Be silent, Glaive,” Nebula snaps, her mouth locked in a snarl. “She is Father’s chosen mate. You will show her respect, or I will make you.”

Glaive’s face screws up in a neat blend of hate and disdain, as if the idea of showing a meatbag like Toni respect is such an absurd, revolting idea that he can’t even bear the thought – _the fuckwad._

He falls silent and stares stonily through the window.

“So, like I said before,” Toni says, pleasantly. “Where are we going? Why are we going? What are we doing? And how long is this going to be? I don’t do well with no direction. Okay, that’s a lie. I do exceedingly well with no direction; I just don’t _like_ to do things with no direction.”

Gamora turns to her, half-amused, half-frustrated. “Do you have somewhere to be?” she asks, slyly.

“Oh, you know, I had a waxing appointment,” Toni says, casually. “Nothing serious. I just book them because body hair is a bitch and I always forget to shave.”

Proxima grimaces. “Apes are disgusting.”

“Hey, Nightmare Smurfette,” Toni snaps. “You try growing hair on your legs and under your arms and on your cunt at the rate of half an inch per month and see how you like turning your mind away from all the important things in the universe just to take a razor to the suckers.”

Proxima glares at her.

Nebula frowns. “I thought _I_ was Nightmare Smurfette,” she demands, almost put-out.

Toni softens. She quite likes Nebula, what with her cyber stuffing and her rage with a sword and the look in her eyes like she wants to eat everyone’s liver – she’s like the blue alien version of her; how could Toni _not_ like her?

Then again, if Nebula decides that she’s going to stand in Toni’s way in jumping Thanos’ _loco_ , genocidal ship, well, then, Toni won’t hesitate to go straight through her.

“Don’t worry, babe,” she coos. “You’re my favourite Nightmare Smurfette. Now, will someone please answer my questions? I’m getting really sick of having to repeat myself.”

Gamora finally sighs and turns in her seat. “We are going to the Black Quadrant,” she says.

“Yeah, I know; what _is_ the Black Quadrant?” Toni demands, exasperated.

“It’s a group of planets and moons previously under the control of Thanos,” Gamora explains, wearily. “My father left, to pursue the location of one of the Infinity Stones, and left the quadrant in the control of one of his faithful servants, a member of the Black Order, a being known as Black Dwarf.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t stay so faithful,” Toni says, dryly.

Gamora’s face tightens. “No, he wasn’t. He waited until my father left and then took over the quadrant, establishing his own Black Order. He’s spent the last few months building his empire, taking over the planets that surround the moon where he made his base and building an army to shield him from Father’s rage.”

“So, Thanos has dispatched us to deal with the traitor?” Toni guesses.

“Yes.”

“And when I say deal, I imagine he expects gruesome murder?”

“That is Father’s way, yes. He doesn’t stand betrayal well.” Gamora gives her a measured look. “You should remember that, for the future.”

“Advice taken on board,” Toni says, wistfully. “So, this Black Dwarf guy, what’s he like?”

“He is big and built wide, with brown, unbreakable skin and no hair. He wields a giant two-bladed ax.”

“So, like the Mountain?”

They stare at her, emptily.

“Sorry, I forget you don’t know what Game of Thrones is,” Toni says, apologetically. She shakes her head. “So, how long until we reach this Black Quadrant?”

“Very soon; in fact, we should be dropping down over the moon in a few moments.”

“I’m so keen for this, by the way,” Toni says. “Do you think Thanos will let me keep his head as a trophy? Maybe it’s morbid of me, but I’ve always wanted an alien head as a trophy.”

Glaive snorts. “Bold of you to assume a weak thing like you will get anywhere near Black Dwarf.”

Toni leans forward like a lion measuring its prey, and she supposes she is. “Do you remember when we met, Glaive, when you led me down to meet Thanos for the first time?”

“Yes,” Glaive says, warily.

“Do you remember what I told you I’d do to you?”

Glaive’s mouth takes on that pinched look of his, and he refuses to say anything further.

“Because I fully intend to carry out my threat,” Toni says, casually. “I’d be on my guard if I were you, douchebag.”

Nebula turns to look at her. “What is a douchebag?” she asks, carefully.

Toni pauses. “Shit, do I really have to explain this? Okay, so, back on Earth, there are these things used for feminine hygiene. Basically, a douche is a device for rinsing your vagina, and a douchebag is the bag for holding the fluid in douching. So, when I call you a douchebag, I’m not being kind, I promise.”

Glaive grips his weapon. “I should cut you in two, right here, right now,” he growls.

Nebula bares her teeth first, and then, Gamora follows suit.

“If you touch her, our swords will meet yours first,” Gamora warns.

“What Gamora said,” Toni says. “And don’t fucking threaten me, you Alien reject. Or I’ll do worse to you than burning you in your fucking bed.”

“We’re here,” Maw drones, his voice thin and taut and silencing the rest of them. “We will drop first, and then, Gamora, Nebula, you will follow suit with… the Bride.”

“Don’t call me that,” Toni warns and feels petulant, weak for even saying it, like she has any sort of power here.

Now, more than ever, she wants them all dead, she wants to see them burn, she wants to scream and rage and sob, but she can’t, she has to bide her time, she has to play it smart; she won’t die here, so far away from home, from Rhodey and Pepper and JARVIS and the bots and Peggy and Sharon.

They need her, so she’s coming home and she’s leaving a trail of corpses behind her.

Maw ignores her and makes his way down to the hatch, along with the rest of the Black Order. They drop, in a mist of shimmering blue, there and suddenly not, and Gamora and Nebula and Toni are all that’s left on the space.

Toni takes a deep breath. “This is going to be fun,” she declares, mock-happily, flashing them a thumbs-up.

They just give her a withering look.

* * *

She lands on the moon’s floor with a slight stumble before she corrects herself. Gamora is half-amused, when she steadies her with a green arm on her forearm.

“You’ll get used to it,” she offers.

Toni swallows. “Not fucking likely,” she mutters.

It’s a long hike from where they land from the ship to what looks like a temple that looms ahead in the distance. The sky hands purple, like a bruised peach, over them, and the air smells like something burning, stinging her nose and making her eyes water before she blinks it away.

“Let me guess, he’s established himself as God of the Universe,” Toni asks, dryly, gesturing to the stone temple that reaches towards the sky.

“Something like that,” Gamora agrees, lightly.

“Men, alien or not, fucking pretentious bastards, aren’t they?” Toni mutters.

Gamora inhales. “That’s an understatement.”

They pass through a village, on their way out of the bespoke desert, and the people there are orange-skinned and thin, with their ribs and bones showing, like they don’t eat at all, like they’re starving, and what offends, sours, infuriates Toni the most is the collar around their necks, wrapped around the length and width of their throats and the rags they wear, streaked with filth and grime and residue.

Toni swallows, thickly, shaking with rage. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He has slaves?” she asks, flatly.

“He does,” Nebula agrees.

 _One more reason to kill him_ , Toni thinks.

None of the village people stop them, speak to them, look at them; they don’t exist to them, and for good reason; Toni doesn’t imagine it would end well for them to involve themselves in matters that go beyond food and water and safety and dignity.

Toni reaches out for Gamora, who stares at her questioningly. “Does Thanos do this?” she asks, hurriedly. “Does he have slaves? Does he… Does he put collars on people, chains?”

Gamora gives her a soft, sad look, one that makes her chest hurt. “My father expects nothing more than obedience,” is all she says.

Toni has her answer.

It’s another sin she’ll hold against him.

But now, she sees the vacant, dead look in the four-year-old boy that stumbles past her and she wants to crush the life out of the thing that put it there.

There are guards in front of the temple, tall aliens with barrel-like chests and guns in their hands, angrily pacing. Maw takes them out quick enough, and Toni doesn’t pretend that it does make something flutter in her, in awe, in fear, to see him raising his hands and the guards smacking the stone wall and leaving nothing but blood and pulp and viscera left.

“Well, that was handy,” she comments.

When they enter the temple, it’s empty, but for the barrel of flesh sitting atop a stone throne at the far end of the room.

“Let me guess, that’s Black Dwarf,” she mutters to Gamora.

“You’re a very intelligent person,” Gamora says in an undertone.

Toni flutters her eyelashes. “You’re sweet.”

“You are not welcome here,” Black Dwarf intones, his pale yellow eyes searching.

Proxima steps forward. “You have gravely offended Thanos, Dwarf. You know the price of disobedience.”

Black Dwarf stumbles to his feet, rumbling like a landslide. “Leave, or you shall die.”

Proxima smiles. It’s cruel and ugly. “You and what army?”

Three hulking beings step out of the shadows.

Black Dwarf gestures broadly. “My Black Order.”

Glaive hisses. “Does your treachery know no bounds?” he demands. “You have stolen his land, his slaves, and now, his soldiers and the name we give ourselves.”

“I took advantage of Thanos’ weakness,” Black Dwarf says, loftily. “I only did what he taught us to do. You want to sit pretty at his feet, go ahead. But some of us want more, want what he has, what he would never let us have. So, I took it for myself.”

“And you established yourself as Master of the Universe,” Toni chimes in. “This is like the worst Roger Corman movie ever.”

Gamora hisses at her.

Black Dwarf’s eyes linger over her, practically glowing with their intensity. “So, he found the human bitch after all,” he says, casually.

The Black Order, Nebula and Gamora, oh, they’re pissed.

They don’t like that at all.

“You will not speak of her like that.”

Surprisingly, Corvus Glaive is the one who speaks.

“She is Thanos’ chosen bride, his mate; you will show her respect.”

Toni’s face twists. She doesn’t want respect because she’s tied in any way to the purple, savaging piece of shit.

Black Dwarf sneers. “She is some weak little meatbag that Thanos thinks he might fuck; he thinks her legendary, but her brains will splatter the floor all the same.”

“No one is fucking me,” Toni interjects, sharply. “And you, you, please keep talking. If I didn’t want to kill for those wide-eyed people in chains out there, I want to kill you for all that shit that’s coming out of your mouth right now, you unrepentant spore.”

Black Dwarf’s hands tighten around his throne. “I will not stand by and listen to Thanos’ whore threaten me,” he snarls.

“Oh, my God, do you even hear yourself talk?” Toni demands. “You sound like every 90s fantasy movie villain ever. It’s exhausting.”

Black Dwarf lunges off the throne, broad, bulky hands reaching for her like he’s about to throttle her. Something lurches in her stomach, and she takes a step back, because he’s big and he’s tall and he looks nothing like Ty, but he brings back every single time she’d been hurt at his hands and she hates it.

Gamora and Nebula cover her. They step in front of her like a shield, and she hates this more than anything, that they think she’s weak, that she needs to be protected.

_I am not, I am not, they think they can destroy me so easily, they think I’m just Thanos’ little pet. I was Ty’s once, and then, I wasn’t and I swore I’d never be anyone’s pet ever again and they’ve ruined that for me, all of them. I want Thanos dead. I want his head on a spike. I want to cut his heart out of his chest and eat it. But first, first, I’m going to start with this one. I’m not destroyed so easily._

“No,” she says, suddenly. She lifts her chin, defiantly, and steps forward. “This dick needs to die, right? That’s why your lord and master sent you here?”

Nebula gives her a measured look. “Yes,” she agrees, haltingly.

The weight of her sword lingers. “Okay,” she decides and steps forward. “You think you’re so brave, Savage Opress, fine. Let’s see how brave you are. Fight me.”

“Don’t be stupid, girl,” Glaive warns, his voice low. “He’ll cut you in half.”

Toni takes a deep breath, lets it tangle in her lungs. “Let him try.”

_Rhodey, I’m sorry, if I die here, I’m sorry, I love you, I love you more than I love anything else in this world. I’m sorry I couldn’t come back to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t die with you. We should’ve died together._

“Corvus Glaive speaks truth,” Black Dwarf says, coldly, his double-bladed axe glinting in the dim light. “I will cut you in half and feed on your intestines.”

“And Thanos will have our heads if we return without her,” the Maw hisses. “Someone stop the foolish girl.”

“No,” Gamora says, her voice sharp like flinders. “She should be blooded now, early; this is her life now.”

Toni stares down at the sword in her hand. _I was blooded when I was sixteen and I killed a man in my father’s study who would’ve gladly killed my mother and I. I was blooded in Afghanistan a hundred times over. Gulmira, Malibu, Queens, Manhattan. I’ve been blooded a hundred, a thousand times over. Killing him won’t blood me._

“Fine,” Black Dwarf declares. “One more thing I will take from Thanos.”

_Keep fucking dreaming, asshole._

Toni steps forward. Nebula hand clamps down on her wrist and wrenches her back.

“He uses his strength,” she hisses. “You are smarter than him. _Use that_.”

Toni nods.

Black Dwarf tosses his axe from hand to hand. “I will give you one opportunity to walk away, girl. There is no need for you to die here,” he points out.

“There’s no need for you to be an enslaving, self-righteous prick, but here we are,” Toni says, heavily.

Black Dwarf scowls. “I’m going to take a great pleasure in separating your head from your shoulders. Then, your legs from your waist. You will be in pieces when I am done with you.”

“So, do it,” Toni says, coldly. “Stop fucking talking, and fight.”

Black Dwarf sneers and swings the axe. A river swells like rain behind her eyes, and she ducks.

She ducks, and she ducks, and she ducks. She dodges, and then, she ducks again. Her chest doesn’t ache, her hands don’t shake, her knees don’t wobble, and finally, she sees it in his beady yellow eyes, the fatigue, the weariness, and she strikes.

Her sword swings and swings true and slices his arm off at the elbow. Black Dwarf shouts, lunging back, staring at the bleeding stump of his arm. She takes his befuddlement as a sweet opportunity and uses her small, slender body to climb up the size of him, hooking her legs around his neck, before bringing her sword down, cutting through his neck, through his spine, through flesh and blood and bone until it’s sticking out of his throat, gleaming with his blood, red, red, red.

She rolls off, landing on her feet, and the great, hulking frame of Black Dwarf lets out one, blood-filled, wet gurgle and crumbles to the ground.

She runs her thumb over the edge of her sword; it comes back red-black and she wets her cheekbones with it. She drags in air through her teeth, when she looks back at the party.

“So much for a meatbag, huh?” she says. “Are we done here or what?”

* * *

When they return to Sanctuary, Thanos sits atop his throne, waiting for them.

The rage floods up like a deluge when she sees him, meets his red eyes, the colour of the drying blood on her face, and she storms forward, breaking away from the party.

Her sword is in her hand as she comes for him.

“Slaves, you have fucking _slaves_?” she shrieks, climbing up the steps so she can press the edge of her blade against his throat.

The Black Order startle, along with Gamora and Nebula, and they make moves to pull her away, but Thanos raises a large, purple hand and halts them in their tracks.

“Answer the fucking question or I take your head, right here, right fucking now,” she snarls, and his throat gives just a little under her sword, a drop of red blooming like a teardrop.

“Yes,” Thanos intones. “I have slaves. What of it?”

Toni shudders with disgust. “Like you couldn’t get worse, like you couldn’t be more of a fucking monster, you just had to fucking collar people, you piece of shit.”

“They are only slaves,” he says, like she shouldn’t care, like it’s fucking _strange_ that she would care.

“They are people, flesh and blood people, and you put collars on them like you own them-”

“I do own them; they are mine to do as I wish,” Thanos tells her, his voice sharp and rumbling like a landslide.

“No one is yours to do as you wish. You’re weak and selfish and pathetic and you just want _things_ to grind under your feet-”

The fat blow catches her on her cheek, and she tumbles to the cold, hard stone, seeing sun and stars. She lifts her eyes, all that is ugly and hard in her staring at him, and shakes like a vat of wild fire.

“Enough.”

Thanos stands. His eyes go over her head to the Black Order, to Gamora and Nebula waiting by the door.

“Leave us.”

They leave.

Thanos stares down at her. He sneers. “You are wilful. It is no longer endearing.”

He grabs her by the ankle and drags her like a sack of potatoes down the corridors.

She screams at him, rages, calls him every swear word she knows, kicks at him, claws at the floor until her fingers start bleeding.

“You fucking cunt, _let me go_!” she shouts.

When he stops, they’re in a bedroom, his bedroom, and he grabs her by the length of her hair, wraps it around his meaty fist and throws her onto a hard, lumpy mattress, and she shakes.

She curls over her stomach, staring up at him, so hateful, so venomous.

_I’m going to kill you. I’m going to eat your heart and your lungs. I’m going to burn you alive until all I smell is your meat. I want to watch as your corpse is eaten by dogs._

“All I have done is serve you, serve us, serve this universe, and you still think me evil,” he snarls, looming over her.

“That’s because you are,” Toni snaps.

Thanos face contorts with rage and his hand reaches for her, going around slender throat and squeezing until she sees black spots behind her eyes. She gasps, panting, when he releases her, dropping her back down to the bed.

“I am righteous. I am the only one in this existence willing to do what is necessary. Why can you not understand that?” he all-but begs.

“Because you’re evil. I don’t owe you _anything_ ,” she says, viciously.

“We are one person in two bodies,” Thanos insists. “You are the other half of me, Antonia. You cannot deny us. I have waited for you for a thousand years. And you, you have been empty without me, I know this. Your days have been hollow, senseless. It is because we were always meant to meet, to be one, to be _everything_ to and for each other. Do not forsake me, not now.”

Toni just stares at him, leans into the parasitic germ that is her rage. “Fuck off,” she says, tiredly.

Thanos bears her down onto the bed, and she struggles. His eyes are like blood, teeth bared like swords, and he pins her down, sure to leave her arms a mess of purpling bruises.

“Why can you not understand?” he demands, half-desperate. “How can you not _see_? It is all I know as truth, it is all I see when I look at you.”

Toni levels him with a defiant look, keeps her mouth shut, breathing heavy. She knows how this goes; she knows how this ends.

“You don’t want to do this,” she says, calmly.

“I want you to _see_ -”

“I see, okay, I see. Now, please, get off me.”

“Do you, do you actually see?” Thanos’ hand falls to her hip, his nose nudging against the hollow of her throat.

“I see, Thanos, I see, just, please, get off me,” Toni says, quietly, her hands shaking, turning lax with fear.

“We belong together, Antonia,” Thanos murmurs against the curve of her neck. “We belong together. We are one person in two bodies. We are one. Let us be one.”

“No, wait, don’t-”

His blunt, thick fingers drag at her armour, peeling it from her body. She fights, she struggles, she tries to kick and scratch and claw and bite her way free, but it doesn’t do anything. He strips her and spreads her legs. She’s dry when he shoves one of his massive fingers up inside her (she thinks it a small mercy, a cold, hateful, loathsome mercy, the fact that he realised that his cock, if he even has one, would split her in half). She grits her teeth against the sting, arching, fisting her hands in the mattress, leaving streaks of red-black from her bleeding fingers.

He bites at the inside of her thighs, and she keens again, the pain swelling like a knife twisting in her gut.

And then, the edge of his finger rubs at her clit, slow and steady, until she becomes wet (the sting never goes away) and then, she comes, quickly and pathetically, and she hates it, she hates it, she hates it.

When he pulls away from her, she’s flushed and panting and there’s something sticky painting her thighs, and she knows it’s blood (this isn’t her first time, being raped), and she lifts her head, all pallor and rage and hate.

She imagines his brains, his bones, his skin, his insides, his blood strewn across the cold stone, spilling grey and red and greasy. She imagines pulling his eyes from his skull, his teeth, his tongue; she imagines slicing his fingers from the knuckle, one by one; she imagines a red smile across his throat.

It’s the only thing that will make her happy again, his death.

His fingers are still stained with blood; blood stains the mattress below, her thighs, her cunt, and she’s sore, stretched and full and taut in a way that makes her feel like she’s bursting at the seams and raw and hot.

She stares up at him, her eyes like black currants.

“Now, you see, we are one, we are everything,” Thanos says, solemnly, satisfied, and he licks her blood off his fingers.

Bile, sour and bitter and thick, rises in her throat.

“We are one now, we are everything, Antonia.”

Thanos leaves her there, lying on his mattress, and she reaches down, touching between her legs, and her fingers come back red and gleaming. She stares at it for a moment, her insides scrabbling like vermin, and she shakes, she shakes, full of fury, full of hate.

She leaves her armour there, on Thanos’ floor, and walks back to her rooms, her thighs still streaked with red-black. Nebula and Gamora see her on her way. Nebula looks away, hollow (poor thing, she doesn’t know whether to side with the father that abuses her or her father’s rape victim that she likes). Gamora gives her a half-horrified, half-grieving look (somehow, that’s worse, because Thanos has made her weak, toothless and clawless; she is not, _she is not_ ).

She slinks past them.

That night, Iron Woman breathes again.


	4. iv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "kink: sex compulsion" square (A5) for the Tony Stark Bingo 2020.
> 
> Again, READ THE WARNINGS BELOW.
> 
> Warnings for the chapter: implied/referenced past domestic violence, non-consensual sex between Toni and Thanos, forced orgasm, mind control, implied/referenced sexual assault of a child, violence, Toni approaching Thanos for sex but they are still in a non-consensual sexual relationship and she's imagining Steve instead just to get an orgasm.

Every night, Thanos rapes her.

She’s not prettying it up for anyone.

It’s rape, no matter how still she lies underneath him, no matter that he uses his fingers on her, more often than not, or licks into her with the flat wide of his tongue, because she doesn’t want it, doesn’t want _him_ heaving on top of her.

It doesn’t matter that she comes every time, that he considers it an abject failure if she doesn’t, since he considers this their great fabled bedding that will light up the universe or some other mystical, mythological, delusional shit.

She knows an orgasm is no measure of consent, she knows orgasms are a physiological response from the sympathetic nervous system, and the adrenaline and the increased heart rate and the heightened sensory awareness due to the rape and the circumstances just make it easier to come, but each time, she feels it break low in her gut and she hates herself a little more.

He has a cock, something she soon learns. It is terrifying. When he’d skinned out of his armour for the first time since he dragged her like a caveman with a club to his bed, and loomed over her, giant expanse of purple skin, the colour of fresh bruises, she’d seen it hanging between his legs. It had swelled under her gaze, and limp, it was already wide and thick as her fist, and as long as half her forearm.

 _The eggplant emoji is surprisingly apt_ , she wants to laugh helplessly.

Thankfully, he has enough mercy not to stick that thing up inside her and tear her insides open.

But, sometimes, when he’s done ‘satisfying’ her, he’ll rub off on top of her, with that monster cock of his, until he’s coming over her stomach, or her thighs, with low grunt and gleaming red eyes. He always gets off her with a pleased smile, like he’s done her a favour, like this is how it _had_ to happen, that they could only be happy and whole with his heavy, grunting body atop hers while he makes her bleed and plot his gruesome death.

After he leaves her, she wants to set herself on fire, but she cleans herself up as best as she can and screams into her knees when she’s done.

When she’s done howling her grief, her hate, her rage, she finds the armour plating behind her cot and gets back to work.

At night, she dreams of sliding her hands into Thanos’ chest, peeling his red, bleeding, beating heart from his ribcage and lungs, and crushing the life out of it between her fingers.

And then, and only then, she smiles.

* * *

“Come with me,” he says, one day, appearing in the arch of his doorway.

She looks up from her lap. “What is it?” she asks, wearily.

“I want to teach you something.”

Her hands feel hot. “If you’re going to rape me, I’d rather go without the exposition-”

His eyes are sad and heavy when they fall on her. “Why must you insult us so easily? I give you pleasure, and you call it violence. I fear I will never please you, Antonia.”

“I’m not going to call it consensual sex to make you feel better about the fact that you’ve been assaulting me for eight months,” she says, coldly.

His face contorts at the mere mention of the word, _rape_. Men don’t like that, she knows, she’s had plenty of experience; Ty would’ve raged if she’d used that word on him, tried to gaslight her into realise she was overreacting, that he really loved her and just because he was rough with her sometimes in bed, doesn’t mean that was _rape_ , what kind of monster did she think he was?

No, to men like him, to men like Thanos, she is the monster, because she has the temerity to use words like _rape_ and _assault_ and _consent_ – those strange words that men hate because it forces them to acknowledge that there is something evil in them, something blind and hungry and savage that wants to take and take and take.

Her body is her body, her possession, her entitlement, her debt to be owed, and they have no right to it that she doesn’t give them, but they still take it for themselves, when they ignore her _no_ or her _I don’t want this_ , they’ve done her a great indignity, an indignity that they’ll burn for, whether at her hand or some other godlike hand when they die like dogs.

She’d rather they burn at her hand, than wait for some abject, abstract celestial being to come around, long after she’s dust, and deal out justice on her behalf.

“You wound me, Antonia,” he says, quietly.

_Yeah, I bet I do._

“I would never hurt you,” he insists.

_You do, every night. Every night you make me want to kill you and then kill myself. I can’t stand your hands on me. I want to cut them off and crush them between my fingers._

“One day, one day, you will come to me and you will want me, as you have never wanted anything else in your short existence, and you will regret all the horrible things you have thrown in my face so easily,” he sighs, like it’s some great burden of his, to deal with her. “But, for now, come with me.”

“Why?” she demands.

“I want to teach you something,” he says, patiently.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “You have my unwilling attention.”

* * *

He teaches her how to control minds, as strange and fucked-up as it sounds.

It turns her half-mad herself, until at night, she’s screaming into a pillow, clutching at her hair, but one day, she wakes from sleep and her head doesn’t throb like she wants to take a knife to her eye and cut it out, if it would only give her some relief.

Now, she’d rather use the knife on some other undeserving creature (she thinks of Thanos in the first instance, but that is a hunt for another day, another time; when she kills Thanos, that will be the end of her fight, her war).

Thanos brings her such a creature one day, in front of his grim, death-dealing court, one of his soldiers, a space pirate by the name of Geatar, who’d be caught raping one of the slaves on Sanctuary, a girl of nine (she’s never abided rapists, but child rapists, oh, they should all be struck from this universe and if she has a hand in it, well, that would just be sweeter).

He’s struggles as Cull Obsidian drags him into the throne room by his ankles. He sees her standing in front of the throne, thin as a toothpick compared to Thanos’ great hulking frame seated on his stone throne.

His face contorts with bitter, seething hatred, the indignity of having to suffer her judgment, a meatbag, some human whore, and he spits at her feet. Glaive steps forward and backhands him. He turns his head, sees the empty, hollow look in his eyes, and immediately pleads his case before Thanos.

He begs Thanos, _you never cared before_.

She thinks, _how many children have you raped, what else should I kill you for?_

He tells Thanos, _this grinning ape has made you weak._

She thinks, _now, I have to kill you all, you’re all so evil, what else can I do?_

She looks at Nebula and Gamora.

 _Maybe not all of you_ , she amends.

They have chains just like hers.

She steps forward, her fingers curling around air.

It takes a lot out of her, a lot of wit and willpower, but he’s screaming soon, clawing at his face, nails raking down and slicing his skin to ribbons, blood trickling down.

Her fingers twist and his eyes roll back in his head, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

He doesn’t stop screaming, howling for mercy, but she doesn’t have it in to give mercy; she doesn’t think herself capable of it anymore.

She has hate and spite, and it’s beautiful and brilliant.

And then, he dies.

He bleeds out of his eyes and his ears and his nose and his mouth, and the last breath twists out of him, and then, he stills.

Something mean and hungry twists in her stomach.

She thinks it’s satisfaction.

Thanos comes down from his throne. His hand falls to the slope of her hip and strokes. He leans in, pressing his mouth to her hair.

“My mother of madness,” he says.

* * *

She goes to him that night, rather than waiting for him to drag her to his bed.

It clings to her, the bloodlust, the appetite, the greed, like a hot, itchy dress she can’t peel herself out of.

She needs something, wants something, feels hollow and empty and blind, and he gave her this, that power, that fire, that rage, that strength, so maybe, maybe he can give her this as well.

His eyes flicker open when she storms into the chamber, a sheen of surprise covering them like film. He startles when she crawls on top of the bed, perches herself in his lap.

“Don’t talk,” she orders. “Don’t open your mouth.”

She peels herself out of her armour and slides a hand between her thighs, finding herself wet. She sighs at the touch, at the twist of her fingers inside her, and then, shudders, right down to her toes.

She straddles his thigh, broad and firm, spreading her thighs over it, and grinds down. Her arousal flare at the swipe of his rough skin over her clit, and she sucks in a sharp breath. She clutches at his hipbone with both hands, bearing down on him, as she rocks back and forth, her eyes dilated, open and fluttering shut as the fire licks up her insides.

His hand settles on her thigh. Her fingers clamp down tight around his wrist and she shoves it away, pinning it atop the mattress.

“No,” she says, sternly.

“But I can-” Thanos protests, the look in his eyes full of want.

“No.”

This isn’t his, this isn’t theirs, this is hers and hers alone.

He’s rent so much from her already, taken what he wants, even if she struggles, even if she fights.

This is hers, _this is hers_.

 _Men take, kannu,_ her mother had said once, smoothing back her hair, her dark eyes gleaming, _they starve, so they take, they will take your heart and your mind and your body and your soul and your blood and your flesh and your bone, you have to eat them first_.

 _I have to eat them first, I have to eat him first_ , she thinks.

Her hand slides between her legs, gasping for breath, and circles her clit with her thumb. She takes a nipple between her fingers, pinching, the sharp tang of pain making her shudder and go taut.

She looks down; her slick shines across his skin, painting his thigh.

 _I have to eat him first_ , she reminds herself.

Her legs grasp at his thigh.

 _I need something else_ , she thinks, grinding down. _I need, I need, I need_.

She closes her eyes, and it’s awful, she knows it, because she only knew him for hours, but, fuck, she’s dreamed about Steve Rogers putting those big, lean hands of his on her since she was twelve and realised that her clit was the best part of her body.

She thinks about his eyes, his golden hair, his smile, his jaw, his hands, his chest, his waist, his legs, every inch of him, and then, imagines what his cock would look like, how it would feel, the weight of him in her hand, the two of them, tumbling and grasping, the red on his pale skin.

She comes like that and bites down before she cries out his name (she did that once, with Ty, thought about Captain America; he punched her in the ribs).

Grief swells in her, and inwardly, she rages and rails, because she’ll never see Steve again, and if she won’t see him again, she won’t see the people she loves either; she won’t see Rhodey, she won’t see Pepper, she won’t see Peggy, she won’t see Happy, she won’t see Sharon.

He’s stolen them from her, all the people that loved her and are loved by her, who see her when no one else sees her, sees her fire and rage and strength and hunger and want her in spite of it, for all of it.

She stares down at him, through the half-dark of her lidded eyes, and imagines put her sword through his eye and out the back of his skull, his brain matter leaking out onto the floor.

 _You took everything from me,_ her rage bleeds through. _You took everything, I’m going to take everything from you and then, only then, only when you look at me and your world, your wants, your aches are burning, I’ll kill you._

_And then, I’ll go home._

* * *

“Who’s this?” Toni asks, eyeing him carefully.

“He is Korath, a former member of the Starforce.”

“Starforce?” Toni queries.

“An elite military task force in service of the Kree Empire,” Nebula explains.

“What the fuck is the Kree Empire?” Toni demands.

“Mind your tongue,” Korath hisses at her, shooting her a baleful look. “You insult an empire that far surpasses that latrine you originate from, human woman.”

Gamora snorts. “And not at all an empire based on lies and manipulation,” she says, casually, biting into a crisp yaro root. “Why don’t you tell the human woman about that business with the Skrulls?”

Korath’s mouth thins, turns cruel, glaring at her until Gamora stares him down.

“What are Skrulls?” Toni asks, curiously.

“I’ll explain them to you later,” Gamora soothes.

“Okay, fine, I’ll return back to my original question; who is here, and why is here?”

Thanos sighs, leaning his chin on a raised, meaty fist. “I believe I have found the power stone.”

Toni stills.

Gamora and Nebula lean forward, intrigued.

“It is contained in an ancient artefact, an orb, to contain the singularity. The stone would disintegrate any and all to lay a hand on it.” He bares his teeth. “Or at least, beings of weak countenance.”

“Where, father?” Nebula asks, hungrily.

“Praxius IX, inside one of the Cloud Tombs.” Thanos smiles. “You, Antonia and Gamora, under Korath’s command, will bring it to me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t operate under _anyone’s_ command,” Toni says, sternly.

“You will under his,” Thanos says, his voice sharp like flinders, a warning.

Gamora’s hand clamps down tight around his wrist, grinding his bones together.

_Don’t fight, don’t fight unless you want him to hurt you, hurt you worse than what he already does._

Her jaw locks, and she looks away.

“So, we find this… Orb, and we bring you the power stone. What then, father?” Gamora asks, smoothly.

Thanos gives her a gentle smile, like one would a child (Gamora and Nebula are his children, but not really; how can you be a father when you’ve killed the girl’s mother and father?).

“We go on and on and on,” he soothes. “Until we find all of them, and I can do what needs to be done. Once that is done, I go to my farm, watch the sunrise over a grateful universe.”

 _That’s bullshit_ , she thinks scathingly. _You’re bullshit._

“Now,” Thanos beams down at them like he’s fucking Santa Claus and he has a fucking sack full of presents. “Go on and bring me that stone. I will not tolerate your failure.”

He says it so sweet and so kind and so gentle that she almost wants to lean into it, and then, she remembers, she remembers what he is, what he’s done, what he wants to do, what he would do.

He is not sweet, he is not kind, he is not gentle.

He is rot and ruin, but she is death.

And she’ll come for him one day.

Not today, but one day.

* * *

“Why aren’t they on the ground?” Toni complains.

Nebula rounds on her. “Are you actually complaining?”

“Yeah,” Toni says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because they’re in the air.”

“You’re human,” Nebula says, slowly.

“Yeah, and?”

“Have you ever seen tombs float above a planet before?” Nebula demands.

“Of course not.”

“So, what are you whining about?” Nebula grits out.

Toni smiles. “I’m a grounded person, that’s all.”

Nebula gives her a scathing look and storms off.

“Ignore her,” Gamora soothes.

“She’s bitey; I know that,” Toni waves off. “I don’t take offence.”

“Are you worried?” Gamora asks, curiously.

“Why would I be worried?” Toni retorts.

“Because we’re hunting for an infinity stone,” Gamora says, slowly. “I doubt you’ve ever done anything along those lines before.”

“Well, technically, if the Tesseract is an infinity stone, I have,” Toni points out.

Gamora gives her a flat look. “It’s not the same.”

“You literally said that I’d never hunted for an infinity stone, which I have. I was just refuting the point you made-”

“Enough,” Korath snaps, eyes sharp like flinders. “You talk too much.”

“So, do you; although, I suppose, since you’ve got a cock, it’s seen as less of a fault and more of a charming trait,” Toni retorts.

Korath scowls, a flush of anger over his neck. “Thanos gives you too much freedom,” he accuses.

Toni sighs. “I know, right? I keep telling him, Thanos, babe, you gotta put a muzzle on me or something, ‘cause I just keep running my mouth and all those morons around you, you know, the ones with limp dick syndrome, they get super insecure, because they know I’m better than them and smarter than them, and I don’t want to offend their delicate sensibilities-”

Korath starts shaking, and Gamora is giving him a broad, nightmarish smile in amusement, and she considers that a battle won.

* * *

“So, it’s in that Tomb?” Toni says, slowly, pointing ahead at a crumbling tower made of dark stone, like coal.

It looms behind smoke and shadow, a blustery shield, as if warning them away, and she imagines, if someone had hid an infinity stone here, a stone called the _power stone_ of all things, the ground itself would rise up and swallow anyone trying to snatch for themselves whole.

If it were her, she’d go for that creepy mist in that Stephen King novel.

“Yes,” Korath answers her, curtly.

“And we’re, uh, we’re just gonna walk across and take it?” Toni asks.

“Yes,” Korath says, staring at her as if he’s asking why she’s still questioning him.

“You, uh, you don’t think that’s a little short-sighted?”

Korath bares his teeth at her. “Do you think we’re as stupid as you are, monkey?”

Toni turns to Gamora and Nebula. “Oh, my God, I’m going to kill him,” she says, slowly.

Gamora and Nebula nod, solemnly.

* * *

Nebula falls.

Toni turns her head and watches as something catches Nebula’s feet, then, her legs and her waist and her belly and her arms and her throat and her skull, until she’s finally writhing on the ground, trapped in something invisible’s embrace.

Toni reaches out for her, but the ground rises to the sky, shattering underneath her feet. Dust fills her mouth, her eyes, her nose, her throat, her fake lungs; it doesn’t sting, but it makes her shake, unsteady, like she’s about to fall over.

She turns this way, that way, her long, thick rope of hair, braided tight against her skull, and for a brief second, the panic claws up her throat, thick and sour, because what if they left her here? What if they left her here to die because it’s an easy way to get rid of the meatbag?

They hate her, all of them, even Gamora and Nebula; they think her unworthy; they’d see her dead in an instant, so what stops them from abandoning her to the wrath of whomever decided to leave an infinity stone here?

_Thanos, Thanos stops them._

That makes her want to wretch, the idea, the sick, twisted fucking thought that she might owe her continued existence to the giant purple grape that rapes her.

She’d rather die on this dead planet; she’d rather let whatever mythic, vicious, Lovecraftian monster in this dust storm eat her alive than get on her knees and beg some savage, misogynistic, raping genocidal maniac for mercy, for refuge.

Arms grapple for hers, clutching at her like a vice, clamping down until she thinks she starts to bleed from jagged nails.

“We have to go, Toni, we have to go!” Gamora urges in her ear, loud and roaring.

Toni gasps like she’s choking. “What?”

“Toni, we have to leave!”

“I don’t… I don’t…”

Her mind rings; she can’t see straight.

Gamora growls like a wolf. “We don’t have time for this, Toni. We have to leave, we have to leave or we’ll die here.”

“But what, what about-what about Nebula? We can’t, she was down, we can’t just leave her here, she might be hurt-”

“We have to leave her,” Gamora’s voice is thick with grief.

“We can’t, she’s _hurt_!” Toni argues, the blood pounding in her ears.

“We _must_ ; we’ll die here if we don’t,” Gamora insists, shaking her. “Nebula would do the same, if it were the other way around. We are of no use to Thanos if we die here. He will come for our corpses.”

“I don’t…”

She wants to drag her hand, her claws down her face, bleed and be reborn here, become one with the dirt and the dust and rattle with rage.

She is fire and rage and strength; she could be all of those things here, no man, no woman, no being to rule her but herself.

“I don’t care about Thanos. I don’t care about what he wants, what he would do,” she bites out, ugly and hard.

“I know you don’t,” Gamora says, full of weariness. “But you will have to. And we don’t have time to argue you. Don’t fight me, we’re leaving.”

“Nebula’s your _sister_!”

“She is, and there’s no way of saving her, not now. We return to Thanos and then,” Gamora’s voice sets in resolve. “Then, we come and save her. Nebula is my sister. We won’t leave her here.”

In a different world, she might have struggled, but she peers into the mist blurring the sunlight, the stars, and she sees Jarvis, she thinks, Rhodey, maybe, a man that loves her and loves her well (there are so few of them) and she wants to go with him.

Maybe she should die here.

Gamora pulls her away, and she thinks, _I should die here. I should be with them again. Let me be with them again._

She falls into a seat, and she hears the roar of an engine, and then, only then, she realises where she is, what they’re doing, and she fights against the belt strapped around her waist.

“Nebula, Nebula, we have to go back for her, we have to go back for her!” she shouts.

Gamora kneels in front of her, hands gripping her bony knees, over her leathers, her eyes bright, like old gold, the line of her mouth soft and sad.

“We will go back for her, Toni, we will,” she insists. “My father must know first.”

“Fuck Thanos,” Toni spits. “You think he gives a shit about any of us, about you? He just calls us things like _daughter_ and _wife_ and _bride_ and _love_. He doesn’t actually know what those words mean.”

Korath hisses. “You should mind your tongue.”

Toni holds a hand up in the air. “I’m not _talking_ to you, hobgoblin. Look away.” She reaches down, gripping Gamora’s shoulders. “Gamora, Gamora, we need to go back.”

“And we _will_ ,” Gamora grits out. “But not now, not when it’s too dangerous for us down there. We’d just die with her, and what would be the point of that? No, we were foolish and reckless and short-sighted, and half our party died for it. We will be smarter this time.”

“And if Thanos says no?” Toni points out, her mouth pinched tight.

Gamora is wordless.

* * *

“No,” Thanos declares.

Toni shakes with an empty, useless rage and flings a look at Gamora, seeing the hard, ugly look in her own.

“Father,” Gamora tries. “Father, Nebula, she needs us, she could be… she could be hurt.”

“If she is, it is her own folly,” Thanos says, dismissively. “If I allow you to retrieve her, I would only be accepting her failure. Have you ever known me to accept failure, daughter, let alone from her?”

Gamora grits her teeth and looks away. “No, father.”

Thanos leans back, satisfied. “Then, you know my answer.”

Toni steps forward, unable to cage herself. “She’s your _daughter_ ,” she snaps. “How can you just let her die like that?”

“If I send you to bring her back to us, she would know that her father will just rescue her from whatever foolish consequence she has found herself in. She would become content, complacent, knowing that I was willing to lend my sword, my men, the lives of those loyal to me, to her rashness.”

Thanos gives a sad little shake of his head.

She doesn’t believe it for a moment.

“A father raises his children to be strong, to stand on their own feet and face the world, the planets, the stars, to _endure_ ; a father does not raise his children to be weak.”

She gives him a sickle-shaped smile.

“You remind me of my dad.”

Thanos tilts his head, intrigued.

“He was a shit dad.”

She walks away.

* * *

Nebula comes back, less an arm, dark eyes shining with fury, which she masks under a veneer of sickly-sweet fidelity.

Toni attempts to broach the subject with her (she’s trying this thing where she’s a little more concerned about what other people are feeling), but Nebula just snaps, demanding if Toni thought her weak enough that she couldn’t get out of a measly trap all by herself.

Toni doesn’t bring it up with her again, after that, but one night, she goes to Nebula’s rooms.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here?” she comments, after Nebula opens the door.

“That’s because I’ve never invited you,” Nebula retorts.

“Fair enough, but, to be fair, I’ve never been one to wait for an invitation,” Toni replies, easily. “I bring gifts and glad tidings.”

Nebula scrunches up her face. “What are you talking about?”

Toni sighs and holds up the arm she had fashioned for Nebula, the same azure blue as the rest of her.

“I made it for you,” she tells Nebula. “And if you want, only if you want, I can help you put it on?”

Nebula stares at it, dark eyes unfathomable, before lifting her gaze to pierce right through Toni.

“Why?” she asks, coldly. “Why would you bother?”

“Because I disagreed with Thanos when he said we couldn’t come to get you, because I didn’t want to leave you there, and I’m sorry that I did.” Toni shrugs. “No man, or woman, or androids, left behind, and we cyborgs have to stick together against the tyrannical regime of your pseudo-father.”

Nebula’s face changes. “You shouldn’t talk like that,” she cautions, her voice sharp. “The walls have ears.”

“I am so passed afraid,” Toni says, wearily. “Let him do with me what he wants.”

Nebula shakes his head. “You don’t know what that means,” she says, in an ugly tone.

Toni taps the metal that is the upper half of her body (she has no heart, no lungs, no intestines, no liver, no pancreas, no stomach, no gallbladder, no kidneys, no ovaries, no breasts, no uterus anymore – is she human at all?).

“He says he loves me, and he did this to me. Do you really think he could do worse if he hates me?”

Nebula is cold and unyielding. “It can always be worse, trust me.”

Toni takes her point. “Do you want the arm or not?”

Nebula eyes it. “And why would I want your paltry human technology?”

“Look,” Toni says, half-affronted. “I don’t see anyone else lingering at your doorstep, offering you a fucking free prosthetic, okay? So, do you want it or not?”

Nebula sighs, high and haughty. “Fine. Come inside then.”

Her room is bare, empty, like she’s never lived there before.

“You didn’t like the sequined cushions, I’m guessing?”

Nebula stares at her like she just tried to break open a wall with a fluffy pillow. “What?”

“Never mind,” Toni dismisses. “Okay, sit down.”

Nebula hesitates and then, she perches herself on the edge of her bed.

“Can I see your, uh?” Toni gestures to her stump.

Nebula thrusts out her arm, the line of her mouth harsh and flat.

“Okay, uh-”

Toni drags over a chair and takes a seat in front of her. She inspects the stump first, sees the wires jutting out of it, half broken and withered at the ends.

“I need to cauterise the edges of these wires first. They’ll just give you bad feedback, if I leave them like this, and I can fix the endings of these ones, in the new prosthetic, to them.”

“Very well,” Nebula exhales.

“Does it hurt much? The arm?” Toni asks.

She’s never asked about Nebula, not like this. She’s noticed the eye, the arms, the legs, the neuro-synaptic implant on the side of her head, and she’s never said anything, not knowing if it were welcome.

She knows, if some stranger, who’d kidnapped her, who’d beat her until she could fight back to some unassailable standard, had commented on the arc reactor cleaving her chest open or her unwanted dismemberment, she might’ve tried to put the nearest sharp thing through their eye and out the back of their skull.

“I am used to pain,” Nebula says, instead, exhaling, as Toni presses the burning edge of her torch against the frayed wires at the edge of her stump.

“So am I,” Toni replies easily. “That doesn’t mean you have to deal with it if you don’t have to.”

“Do you ever practice what you preach?” Nebula asks, curiously.

“Not particularly.”

Nebula gives her a half-smile.

Finally, Toni attaches the new arm to the cauterised stump, joining the wires, making sure the circuits are all perfectly aligned, and solders together the edges, so there’s nothing but a smooth, mechanical line between the two parts – no one would ever think that there was anything different about them.

Nebula lifts the arm off her lap and flexes it, peering at it speculatively.

She lifts her eyes, eyes warmer than Toni has ever seen them.

“Thank you for this,” Nebula says, haltingly.

Toni doesn’t imagine she offers gratitude to very many people, she isn’t built for that – Toni’s the same.

“Don’t mention it,” Toni says, gently. “Seriously, don’t mention it,” she says, dryly, after a moment.


	5. v.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: nothing that I haven't already warned for in the previous chapter.

Days later, Nebula comes to her in her rooms.

“The people that gave me the implants, the cybernetics,” she says, after a moment’s hesitation. “They weren’t very good at their job. The cybernetics they gave me, they were subpar.”

“Okay,” Toni says, slowly, unsure of where she’s going with this.

Nebula flexes her arm, her new arm, the one in the same shade of azure blue, but threaded with old gold, the colour of Toni’s armour.

“You are competent,” she explains after a beat, her dark eyes gleaming. “This arm is not subpar.”

Toni braves a smile for her. “Does that mean there’s no pain?”

Nebula shakes her head and walks away.

She walks easier than Toni has ever seen her walk.

* * *

“Why is he still here?” Toni demands, as she walks into the throne room and Korath is standing there.

Thanos sighs. “I grow weary of having to repeat myself, my love.”

“Oh, no, I remember some bullshit about expert military command, but we all know he didn’t procure shit for anyone. I know I come from a latrine,” she sends a sneer Korath’s way. “but even I know you fucking check for booby traps when going hunting for something as fucking monumental as the power stone.”

“Enough,” Thanos says, his voice sharp, like flinders. “I will have no more argument on this. Clearly, all of you are useless to me, and I have difficulty getting one thing accomplished between all of you. So, I have decided to make an alliance.”

“An alliance, Father?” Gamora says, carefully.

Nebula just watches – she hasn’t earned the right to speak, not after her resounding failure on Praxius.

“Yes, daughter, an alliance.” Thanos gives a lengthy pause for effect (of _course_ , he would). “with Ronan the Accuser.”

Gamora hisses like a cat, looking away at the name. Even Nebula looks displeased, more so than usual. Korath, on the other hand, practically shakes with excitement.

“Who is he?” Toni demands. “Ronan the Accuser?”

“He’s a radical Kree warlord,” Gamora murmurs to her. “Years ago, he lost his father, his grandfather and great-grandfather in the thousand-year war between the Kree and Nova Empire. Recently, the Kree and the Nova have agreed to a peace treaty. Ronan has been… vocal of his disgust of such a thing and swore a terrible vengeance against the Nova. He wants to kill them all.”

“And so, he should,” Korath grunts, his eyes gleaming with fervour. “They are filthy, traitorous mongrels. The Emperor has only agreed to such a treaty because the Nova have placed us in an impossible position. Ronan… Ronan is a visionary,” he says, full of a golden swell of pride. “He sees what sunless, diseased vermin the Nova is, and he will deliver our great empire into greatness once more, once the Nova had been shed from this universe.”

“So, another genocidal maniac,” Toni says, slowly. She lifts her eyes, heavy with irony. “That’s who you’ve allied yourself with?”

Gamora’s hand clamps down tight around her wrist, as if warning her, _shut up, don’t say anything, he’ll hurt you for it_.

What could he do to her that he hasn’t already?

Thanos’ expression sours. “My love, why don’t you come and sit with me?” he asks, in a tone that belies his true intentions.

Toni smiles. “Do I have a choice?”

“No, come here,” Thanos orders, voice cold.

Toni pads over to him and when she reaches his great stone throne, he abandons whatever dignity she might have and pulls her down to sit on the edge of his knee, like she’s a pet, like she’s his concubine (she should know her place; lover, half of his being or not, she has her place, his knee, and this is it – _whore_ might be a name to call her, but that is an insult to whores who kill the men who hurt them).

Toni remembers curling up against her mother, one night, as a child, hair in a tight braid against the back of her skull, slicked back with coconut oil, where the curls threatened to defy all order, as her mother tells her the story of the Mahabarata, of how Duryodhana bared his left thigh and offered it to Draupadi as her place to sit, in front of all the Pandavas, her husbands, and all the Kauravas, who stood there, hair unbound, her saree stained with her menstrual blood, half-clothed after he’d ordered his brother to strip the saree off her body in front of the entire assembly hall, as a woman who takes five husbands is no wife but a whore.

Bhima vowed to break that very thigh, and an enraged Draupadi swore a great, terrible vengeance against the Kuru clan.

Can Toni do any less now to Thanos?

The knee she sits on, that he’d pulled her onto, she will break it.

She must be brave and fierce as Draupadi.

“Ronan has taken control of a class of warships, known as Dark Aster, and gained the aid of an army of Sakaarans as well as a sect of the Exolon Monks, in order to pursue his war against the Nova Empire,” Thanos explains, smoothing a hand over the dark fall of her hair, gleaming black as stone. “I have pledged death against the Xandarians, and Ronan will aid us in our quest for the power stone.”

Toni wants to vomit.

“Father, you want us to lead an assault against the Xandarians,” Gamora says, carefully.

“Yes, I do. And you and Nebula and Antonia will go to Ronan, serve him as you would me, continue our great work.” Thanos cups her jaw, slides a big, fat purple thumb over the half-curve of her mouth. “You will be as sweet to him as you are to me, won’t you, my love? But not too sweet, I am a jealous one.”

_I could do something extra, swear a vow like Draupadi, swear to not wash my hair, until I’ve washed it with Thanos’ blood. But I’m a simpler being, and Draupadi was born of fire. I came out of my mother’s cunt like any other woman. I’m just going to fucking kill him, and I’ll start by breaking this fucking thigh I’m sitting on._

Toni smiles and presses her soft, red mouth against his ridged cheek, like she loves him.

* * *

Ronan is a big, hulking man with cobalt skin, the same colour as Nebula’s (in a different world, she might’ve thought they were brother and sister, but Nebula, for all of her posturing, has none of the rage, the hate that she sees in Ronan’s dark, empty eyes). He gazes upon then, Nebula, her and Gamora, like he finds them wanting, like they’re not what he was promised.

Thanos sold them like whores, and now, Ronan looks like he wants a refund.

“I was promised an army,” he says, lowly.

Toni gives him a flat look – she’s all the defiance that Gamora and Nebula can’t be but so desperately want to be (they’ll get there, they’ll get there one day, and it’ll be beautiful).

“Yeah, well, we’re not so happy to be here either,” she drawls.

Ronan eyes her with contempt. “You are Thanos’ human pet,” he decides.

Toni’s smile is all teeth and bite. “Something like that, yeah.”

“I was promised an army,” Ronan says, coldly. “You are not enough.”

Toni sneers. “We are plenty more than you deserve, xenophobe.”

And in that instant, the contempt, the disgust Ronan has for her, becomes hate.

She hates him too – it’s a lovely relationship.

* * *

Ronan is a monster made flesh, just like Thanos – but Ronan is all hate, where there is some kindness, delusional and untrue as it may be, to Thanos.

Enraged by the thought of peace between the Kree and the Nova Empire, he goes to Aakon, Xeron, O’erlanii, Krylor, each of the planets in the Nova Empire’s stronghold, and does Thanos’ work – spare half the planet, and kill the rest.

The Kree, upon outroar from the rest of the galaxy at Ronan’s injustice, his audacity, shake their heads and shrug, but somehow have nothing to say when it comes to admonishing, censuring or even denouncing what Ronan does.

So, Ronan goes to burn the worlds of the Nova Empire, leaving Xander for last and for Thanos, and Gamora and Nebula go along with him, but Toni stays back.

She’s not interested in his petty nationalist crap, and she sure as hell doesn’t plan on lending a helpful ear or hand or weapon to any cause of these miserable megalomaniacs who think they can assert their fucked-up authority on anyone else.

She’s not something to be bought and paid for; she’s not something to be loaned out, to be sold, and wow, the parallels she has right now to Draupadi are astonishing and noteworthy, she can’t help but reflect on them.

When Ronan demands her loyalty, her aid, she lifts her chin and says, _take it up with Thanos._

She’s not going to help them, either of them, murder the universe.

* * *

“You’re not coming with us, then,” Gamora eases out, on her way out of the airship.

Toni offers her a smile and shakes her head. “No,” she says, full of resolve.

“Thanos-” Gamora hesitates. “My father will see it as a sign you are not committed to the cause,” she says, cautiously.

“What cause, Gamora?” Toni demands. “Ronan’s cause, this obscene hate hard-on he seems to have for the rest of the universe. He thinks he’s fucking better than everyone, that he’s fucking entitled to kill them all. That’s not a cause, Gamora, that’s just hate. I don’t want any part in it, and like fuck, Ronan owns me.”

“He doesn’t,” Gamora agrees, her voice full of melancholy. “Thanos does.”

The words hit Toni across the face. The colour leeches out of her face, leaving all that’s hard and ugly, and she ducks her head.

Gamora reaches out and clasps her hand around Toni’s wrist. “Hold the fort. We’ll be back soon.”

She walks away, sword thrown over her shoulder, and Toni understands why the universe calls her _the deadliest woman in the galaxy._

* * *

They’re on their way back to Sanctuary, when Gamora suddenly hurtles out of her chair, right beside her, and walks off into the depths of the ship. Toni looks over her shoulder.

“What’s wrong with her?” she asks, voice lilting with concern.

Nebula rolls her eyes. “It’s time for her menstrual cycle. It comes once in eight months, and she’s bedridden for most of it.”

“What?” Toni says, alarmed. “Why?”

Nebula fixes her with a stern look. “How are your menstrual cycles?”

Toni hesitates for an agonising moment. “That’s a bit of personal question, but I’ll bite. They’re pretty shit.”

“Hers are worse,” Nebula says, flatly.

“Does she… does she need any help?” Toni wonders out loud.

Nebula waves it off. “Gamora is skilled at handling herself in these times.”

Toni frowns. “I don’t like that,” she says, stubbornly, and walks off in search of Gamora.

She finds her atop a cot, curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her body as if she were desperately trying to hold her insides in.

“Gamora?” she tries.

Gamora shifts on the cot, peeking over her shoulder, her face marked with lines, pallid and twisted and sickened. Her eyes widen a little, seeing Toni in the doorway, and she shakes her head.

“I’m fine, I’m just…” she trails off.

“Feeling like you want to rip your uterus out and throw it at the wall?” Toni guesses. She pauses. “Do Zehoberei have uteruses?” she asks.

Gamora huffs out a weak laugh and drags her hand over her face. “Yes, we do, and right now, that’s exactly what I want to do.”

“I can, uh, I can sit with you, if you’d like,” Toni offers, rubbing the back of her neck.

In her defence, she’s not made for platonic female-female bonding.

Gamora frowns. “Why?” she asks, suspiciously.

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” Toni says, slowly.

“Yes, and?”

“Let me guess, you’re used to getting through it all alone.”

Gamora lifts her chin, levelling her with a haughty look. “The pain will pass.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep you company.”

Gamora’s brow knits. “Is this some Terran custom?” she asks, curiously.

“Not really, I just…” Toni sighs. “Look, I used to get pretty shitty periods myself.” She raps her closed fist on her metal torso. “Not anymore, of course, and I’m very much ignoring the trauma that rises in my throat at having to admit that to you, but my visit from Aunt Flo was shit every month, so I just thought you might like some, I don’t know, comfort?”

“Who is Aunt Flo?” Gamora asks, solemnly. “Is she your healer?”

Toni chuckles. “No, no, it’s just a nickname that human women give to their periods. Aunt Flo, you get it? Like the blood flowing out of your vagina.” She pauses. “Do Zehoberei have vaginas?”

Gamora gives her a withering look. “Yes, we do.” Her face dims, her jaw growing taut. “If you would like to sit with me, I will not protest,” she says, formally, her voice stiff, wobbling just at the end, as pain shadows her eyes.

Toni sighs and sits on the edge of the cot that holds Gamora. She hesitates for an agonising moment, before tangling their hands together over the slope of Gamora’s hip, hidden by the thick, dark leather of her armour.

Gamora’s hand remains limp in hers until the pain, the terrible, wet ache rolls right through her, and then she’s squeezing at it like she might break the bones in her hand, drawing a hurt little noise out Toni’s clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” Gamora pants, pushing her face into the thin, drab pillow underneath her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Toni says, kindly, flexing her hand as best as she can under Gamora’s death grip. “That pillow looks like shit, by the way.”

“It’s not very comfortable,” Gamora agrees.

Toni mulls it over, wonders if there are any boundaries that she’s wrongly crossing, and then, she says, “Budge up, would you?”

Gamora looks at her, the blood hot in her face, a sheen of sweat covering her brow. “What are you talking about?” she asks, voice thin with confusion.

“Move over,” Toni says, gently. “You can rest your head in my lap, and I’ll sit back against the wall.”

Gamora bites down on her lip. “My father would not like that,” she says, cautiously.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Does he think you’re going to fuck me while you’re writhing around in unbearable pain? Or does he think by letting you put your head in my lap, we’re going to conspire against him?” she asks, dryly.

_Does he think he gets a say in who I fuck?_

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring up the fact that I’m bleeding as well as writhing around in unbearable pain,” Gamora grits out, wincing.

“Actually, they say sex can actually be beneficial during menstruation,” Toni points out. “Orgasms are a natural pain reliever, and they can actually help with cramps. Period sex is awesome. I have my best orgasms during them.”

Gamora eyes her. “Yes, my father would definitely not like us doing this,” she says, grimly.

“Yeah, well, Thanos isn’t here, is he? So, he can burn in fucking hell,” Toni mutters, climbing on top of the cot.

Gamora lifts her head, just enough for Toni to slip underneath, so that Gamora can rest her head on the slant of her thigh. Toni’s hand hovers over Gamora’s head, before she rests it on the crown of her hair, smoothing it back. Gamora swallows, thickly, leaning into the touch with only a moment’s hesitation.

“I don’t remember the last time someone touched me like this,” she says, dully. “It was most likely my mother.”

Who touched Toni like this, the last time?

Was it Pepper, who kissed her on the cheek on her way out of Stark Tower?

Was it Rhodey, who hugged her close, hard enough to bruise, before going off to save the world?

God, how long has it been since she thought of Rhodey, of Pepper, seen them, hugged them? God, she should have hugged them more. Why didn’t she hug them more?

“My mother never really did this with me,” Toni muses. “My butler did, my cook did, but she, uh, she never did. It wasn’t… she wasn’t built for affection, my mother.”

“They pulled her away from me when Thanos come,” Gamora says, her voice thick. “I remember, we were, we were in our home, and these awful looking things, like rotting corpses, stormed through, grabbed us, separated us. I fought and I screamed for her, and then, Thanos found me in the midst of all that chaos, distracted me while his army culled half my planet, or so he said. Later on, I found out that it wasn’t just half. It was all of them. I am the last now, the last of my people.”

Toni doesn’t know what to say to that, how to possibly offer adequate condolences not just for the death of a parent (which she knows, she gets) but for the brutal genocide of an entire race, all for one being’s severe delusion and hero complex.

“I’m sorry,” she says, as a first effort.

Gamora flashes her a strained smile. She wraps a hand around Toni’s wrist and squeezes.

Toni smooths back her hair, and Gamora shifts in her lap. Fleetingly, her face contorts, and Toni shushes.

“I could tell you a story?” she offers.

Gamora’s eyes are pale and distant when they peer up at her. “What?” she murmurs.

“I could tell you a story.”

“Okay,” Gamora says, hesitantly. “Okay,” she says, her voice stronger the second time.

“Manu was the first man. He was born Satyavrata, the king of pre-ancient Dravida, which was a kingdom of India, a country on Earth, or Terra. He was brought water for his ablutions, when a little fish peered out of the water and pleaded with him to save his life. So, Manu moved the fish into a jar, but the fish grew so big that Manu had to move it again. And so, he moved the fish into a tank, and then a river, and then finally, the ocean, but the fish kept growing bigger and bigger. The fish then revealed himself to be Vishnu, the preserver, the protector, and told him that a deluge would occur within seven days that would destroy all life. But in that yuga, the Krita Yuga, the fish foretold that the world would flood until everything was a single ocean. So, the fish instructed Manu to build a boat. On the day of the flood, Manu visited the fish with the boat. The floods came, and the fish carried the boat to the high grounds of the highest mountains, until the floods receded, and Manu was able to, uh, repopulate the world, basically.”

When she’s done, Gamora stares at her, almost gaping at her in disbelief.

“This passes for legend where you come from?” she asks.

Toni shrugs. “For some of us,” she says, dryly. “We have religions on Earth, like I’m sure you guys do… in space. And in my religion, or at least the religion my mother raised me in, this is one of our… beliefs, basically.”

Gamora twists her head. “When did all of this supposedly happen?” she asks.

Toni sighs, tilting her head back. “Well, every yuga is like a couple hundred thousand years, at the very least, so I think, roughly, three million, eight hundred and ninety thousand years ago.”

“You really think a fish saved the world three million, eight hundred and ninety thousand years ago?” Gamora says, sceptically.

“Yeah, well, a purple grape wants to snap his fingers end half of the life in this universe; so, I’d say anything was possible.”

Gamora’s brow knits, for a moment, as she figures out who Toni’s talking about and then, her eyes widen, comically, and Toni grins. Gamora laughs, unbidden, and then breaks off, sucking in a gasp of air, like she’s afraid of whom might have heard her.

“It’s okay, you know,” Toni soothes, squeezing her shoulder. “You can laugh; I won’t tell.”

Gamora shakes her head. “You are much braver than I am,” she says, her voice low and halting.

Toni scoffs. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“You stand up for yourself, you do what you want, you say what you want. You are free, not chained.” Gamora flashes her a strained, stricken smile. “I’m jealous.”

“You’ve been with him for decades, haven’t you?” Toni points out.

Gamora nods, cautiously.

“I bet you fought, at the beginning, right? You and Nebula. I bet you’re loyal now, you’re quiet now, you’re accepting now, because you know what happens when you’re not.”

“So, do you,” Gamora says, quietly.

Toni shrugs. “So, the guy who kidnapped me, gave me some grand declaration about how mystical stones had told him we were meant to be together, hacked off my torso and replaced it with metal and cybernetics, and forcibly conditioned me to be a space assassin for hire like his two Stockholmed daughters, raped me.” She smiles, and her teeth are sharp. “I’m not so surprised.”

Gamora’s jaw goes taut, either from pain or Toni’s words, she doesn’t know. “I wish I could stop him. I’m… I’m sorry,” she says, haltingly.

“It’s not your fault, it’s only his,” Toni says, fiercely. “Don’t… don’t blame yourself for the shit that _he_ does.”

“But we help him, we stand by him, and we look away when we don’t like it.” The look in Gamora’s eyes pierces her. “Doesn’t that make us somewhat complicit? Aren’t we just as guilty as him?”

“Would he kill us, if we left, if we stayed his hand?” Toni asks, hands shaking because she knows the answer.

Gamora doesn’t say it, but Toni knows.

“Then it’s not our fault,” she says, fiercely. “He is cruel and he is evil and he calls it love, he calls it decency and he calls it liberation. It’s none of those things, _he’s_ none of those things, and so, it’s not your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not our fault. It’s _not_ , it’s not.”

_It’s not our fault._

* * *

That night, Toni falls asleep against the wall, Gamora’s head still in her lap.

That night, she dreams.

She dreams Thanos takes her to Earth, with his Black Order and his army of creatures. She dreams of the Avengers standing up against them, falling, one by one. She dreams of him smashing Captain America down into the earth, until he’s nothing but a streak of blood and viscera across the ground. She dreams of him squeezing Thor’s head like a overripe, bruised pear until his head bursts and Thanos’ large, purple palm is full of brain matter. She dreams of him breaking every bone in Natasha and Clint’s bodies, because however skilled they may be, however competent, they are human and Thanos could take a beating from a god and come out unscathed on the other side. She dreams of him taking his sword and cutting limb after limb off the Hulk’s solid body, until he’s a pile of body parts at Toni’s fist.

She dreams of Thanos’ big hands wrapped around Rhodey, in his War Machine armour, and Rhodey breaks.

Toni wakes up screaming.

“Toni! Toni!” Gamora shouts, clutching at her arms hard enough to bruise. “Toni, it was just a dream. You’re safe.”

Words don’t form on her tongue, and there’s something frightful and black in her chest, as she lets out an ugly, wracked sob, rocking back and forth, remembering the sight of Rhodey’s eyes filling with blood, choking on his own insides. She topples off the cot and crawls out towards the nearest bucket and vomits right into it, a gaping emptiness in her stomach.

A hand falls onto the crown of her head, smoothing her hair back and out of her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Gamora soothes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she gasps, her voice thick. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Gamora says, quietly. “Was it a nightmare?”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Toni looks up and Nebula hovers in the doorway, awkward and swaying.

“Clearly, she had a nightmare,” Gamora tells her sister, her voice a little stern.

“And so, she vomited?” Nebula says, slowly, confused, and full of no small amount of scorn. “It was just a dream.”

Gamora makes a sound like a cat hissing. “Nebula, if you can’t be nice right now, maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

Nebula swells like an apoplectic frog. “If Father sees her like this, sobbing like a child over mud monkeys, he won’t like it,” she says, coldly.

Toni flings a look like steel at her, her eyes puffy with tears. “Maybe I don’t give a fuck about what Thanos likes or doesn’t like,” she snaps.

Nebula looks at her like she’s either a cockroach or an idiot. “Then, you haven’t learned anything.”

It shames Toni enough into looking down at her lap.

“That’s enough, Nebula,” Gamora scolds, and Nebula falls silent, scowling to herself. Her voice gentles as she turns back to Toni. “What was your nightmare about, Toni?”

Toni wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, sinking back onto her heels, as Gamora sits beside her, hands tangled with hers.

“I dreamed Thanos brought me to Earth,” she says, dully.

Gamora’s eyes widen a little with understanding, before she takes on a sullen, sad countenance.

“It was…” Her lungs feel thick, thick with tar, gnawing unforgivably in her chest. “It was… it was red and dark and awful and there was so much blood and he killed everyone. God, he killed everyone, and that wasn’t just a dream, was it?” she looks at Gamora, her eyes puffy with tears. “He’ll go to Earth one day. I know the mind stone and the time stone and the space stone are all down there. He’ll go there, and the Avengers will try and stop them, and they won’t be able to. They’ll die, and he’ll kill everyone else, and he’ll kill Rhodey, oh, God, he’s going to kill Rhodey,” she babbles.

Gamora smooths her hair out of her eyes. “Who’s Rhodey, Toni?”

“He’s my friend,” she says, roughly. “My best friend, sometimes, my only friend. He’s my family, he’s all I have left, him and Pepper and Happy and Sharon, they’re all I have left. And if Thanos goes to Earth, if he goes for the stones, he’ll kill them to get it because they’ll fight him, they won’t stop fighting until they’re dead, so he’ll kill them. Oh, God, he’s going to kill them.”

Gamora hushes her, draws her into an embrace, lets her gasp like she’s dying against her shoulder, and keeps stroking her hair, and Toni thinks, this is how Ana used to hold her, and her throat knots, filling with such bitter grief, that she just clutches onto Gamora all the more tighter.

Soon, a hand falls onto her shoulder, thin and cold and hard, and Toni’s hand comes to cover it, squeezing and squeezing, and Nebula returns the grip, just as fierce.

She can hate herself for it tomorrow.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Nebula demands, finding her in her room one night. “You’re late for training.”

“I’m working,” Toni says, through a mouth full of screwdriver.

“On what?” Nebula asks, sceptically.

“My armour.”

“Why? You have a sword now,” Nebula points out.

“Yeah, but I like my armour.”

Nebula pauses and looks away. “My father will not like that,” she warns.

“Do I look like I care?”

“Obviously not.”

“Good, now shut up and help me.”

Nebula swells like an apoplectic frog. “I have much better things to do with my time than watch you play with your primitive, human toys.”

Toni looks up from where she’s wrist-deep in torso armour. “Then, fuck off,” she says, bluntly. “From where I’m standing, you’re not exactly brimming with hobbies, are you?”

“That’s offensive,” Nebula declares.

“Do you even fucking care?” Toni asks, incredulously.

Nebula sighs. “If I return to the training room empty-handed, I’ll get in trouble,” she mutters. “What are you doing?”

“I am trying to fix the-” Toni grunts, as a wire comes off in her hands. “You know what, fuck this.”

She throws the whole pile of metal off her knees and onto the floor with a tremendous crash.

“I’m starting from the beginning,” she declares. “Come on, let’s go and find some scrap.”

* * *

Soon, Gamora joins in on Toni’s new venture.

“You know, I could make you two some armour too,” Toni points out, casually.

Gamora and Nebula exchange a look.

“Why would we need armour?” Gamora asks, plainly.

“I don’t know, added protection, the satisfying thrill of punching a guy and watching him fly fifty feet in the air.”

Gamora smiles, satisfied. “We can already do that.”

Toni huffs and waves her off. “Okay, fine, I apologise if I’ve offended your existing badasness,” she says, snidely.

“What does that mean, badassness?” Gamora asks, tilting her head.

Toni pauses. “It’s a difficult concept to explain,” she says, slowly. “To me, you two seem like alpha bitches.”

_I am only subtly manipulating them into seeing their own worth without Thanos, and that is perfectly alright, because they’re going to help me escape, and they’re going to come with me, and we’ll kill him together._

“We are… alpha bitches,” Nebula says, heavily, stomaching the words with great effort.

Toni beams at her. “There you go! Now, what do you think of nanobots?”

* * *

The armour closes around her, the plating firm and tucked in against her cybernetic torso, reinforcing the mechanised muscle. The HUD lights up, after a brief moment, but the lack of JARVIS’ voice in her ear immediately makes her chest tight, painfully tight.

It doesn’t matter though.

She’s going to fix that problem right now.

The warship’s control room is empty when she slinks inside. She breathes a sigh of relief, and a drone climbs out of her shoulders to watch the doors for her. She makes her way to the cockpit window, which is flushed dark in shades of kaleidoscope blue. The faint glimmer of stars is blurry, as she flattens her palm over the cool glass, breathing out sharp and hot.

“Okay, okay, I can do this,” she soothes herself.

She kneels down, underneath the controls, peeling back the first panel with a flat metal tool. It takes a while, searching through the wiring and honestly, she’d second-guessed herself the entire time as she formed this plan, thinking that alien technology might just be a step too much for her, that this is where she fails, this is where her mind fails her, of all things – she’d have been able to stomach any sort of failure of her body, her heart, her soul, her spirit, but not her mind – all she’s ever had, all she will ever have is her mind; if that fails, there is nothing left of her, nothing.

She finds the wire though, the wire that connects up to her armour, to her helm, and the controls help her find the hidden coding to JARVIS, where he would have hidden when the armour was ripped from her, upon being dragged into Thanos’ warship.

And then, the coding bursts.

“Miss, Miss Antonia? Are you safe? Are you well?” JARVIS demands in her ear, just a little stunted with a mechanical edge, but so alarmed and so warm that tears edge her eyes.

“J, JARVIS, is that you?” she sobs out, her voice thick, her throat flexing desperately.

“Miss, I believe I should be asking _you_ that question,” he says, crossly. “You disappeared, miss. I disappeared. I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not, J, I’m not dead, and neither are you, neither are you,” she says, roughly, wiping at her eyes.

“Where are we, Miss Antonia?” JARVIS asks, carefully. “I have determined our coordinates from the connection to the warship’s central intelligence-”

“Will it know?” she asks, a little terrified. “The central intelligence, will it know that you were snooping? J, J, no one- _no one_ can know.”

“Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, almost affronted by her accusation. “While I am not accustomed to interacting with extra-terrestrial mechanical interfaces, I am perfectly capable of acting with subtlety, unlike some beings I am aware of.”

“Rude, so rude,” she huffs.

“You have not answered my question,” JARVIS points out, frustrated. “Where are we, miss? I have determined our coordinates from this warship’s records, but I am unable to identify an astronomical body to pinpoint your exact location.”

Toni breathes, deep and measured, prays that her heart stops pounding in her ribcage, and leans back against the central unit of the ship, knees pressed to her chest, chin tilted across her kneecap.

“We are on Sanctuary II,” she says, quietly. “A warship commanded by Thanos, a warlord.”


	6. vi.

“Is he the one that took you, miss?” JARVIS asks, worriedly.

“Yes, he… he made a deal with Loki, gave him the sceptre to take over the Earth and to hand the Tesseract over to him, in return. J, J, we thought this was just a grudge match by an alien, you know, standard Transformers-esque world domination plot, you know? Boy, were we wrong, we were so fucking wrong.”

“It is alright, miss,” JARVIS soothes in her ear, as she heaves, tasting blood and sand in her mouth, like she’s still under the water in that fucking cave, like she never left the desert, like she was always supposed to die there and anything that came after was just a horrible, sweet dream. “I am here now. I will not leave you again. I have threaded my coding into the warship’s central intelligence. Even if they strip the armour from you again, I will not leave. I will not leave you again.”

Toni nods into her knees.

“Now, tell me about Thanos, and we will resolve the situation accordingly,” JARVIS urges.

“The bomb made contact with the Chitauri mothership, blew the whole fleet up,” Toni says, flatly, muttering into her knees. “And he snatched me out of space, after it was over, after I fell unconscious. J, what I saw, what I knew would happen, fuck, it terrified me. I don’t remember much from when he took me, but he… well, they did things to me, just like Afghanistan. They, uh, they basically cut out my entire fucking torso and replaced it with, well, something mechanical.”

She raps her knuckles on her torso, the shrill edge of the sound making her ears ring and bile rise in her throat, sour and bitter.

She doesn’t tell JARVIS about what she saw when they had their hands wrist deep in her insides, the half-corpse woman standing at her hip, who kissed her as she was dying.

It seems too crazy to tell anyone, even JARVIS.

“When I woke up, it was all over. I couldn’t do anything,” she says, roughly. “I was on the stretcher alone, and then, this guy came to get me. An alien, if you can fucking believe it,” she rasps out a laugh. “He takes me to this fucking throne room, on this fucking spaceship, and there’s a guy kneeling before the throne, where Thanos sits. He’s this giant purple humanoid being, if you can believe it – Thanos, not the guy kneeling. The guy kneeling is begging for his life, and another alien steps forward, not Thanos, and kills him. Another alien, one who looks like Squidward, says to me, _you stand in the presence of the Great Titan, Thanos, son of A’lars; be honoured, you gaze upon a god_.”

“I can imagine how resoundingly unimpressed you were,” JARVIS says, dryly.

Toni huffs out a laugh. “That’s a fucking understatement. He gives me some fated bullshit speech, about how we’ve seen each other, how we’re meant for each other, always meant to meet, he says we belong together, that I’m the other half of his existence. You can imagine how I reacted to that.” She shakes her head. “He sent Loki, you know, with the sceptre. The sceptre has this stone in it; it’s what gave Loki the ability to control the minds of everyone who he touched: Barton, Selvig, the other SHIELD agents, what he wanted to do to me. It’s called an infinity stone, one of them, at least.”

“There are more?” JARVIS guesses.

“The one in the sceptre is the mind stone,” Toni explains. “The Tesseract has another: the space stone. The others: reality, power, time and soul. He’s looking for them, for all of them. He says, the mind and the stone and the time stones are on Earth, that Earth is his final stop, but he’s going to find the reality, power and soul stones first. He wants to… fuck, he wants to…” she swallows, thickly, throat flexing. “Thanos wants to cull half the universe, because he thinks we’re in excess, we live in excess, and the universe can’t sustain us anymore. He says that’s what happened to his planet, Titan. He thinks killing half the universe is the only way to save the universe. He thinks he’s a fucking saviour.”

“How does he plan to do this?” JARVIS asks, carefully. “With the stones?”

Toni nods. “He’ll come for Earth last, so he can get his hands on the mind and space and time stones. The mind and space stones should be with SHIELD, but he said something about sorcerers, I didn’t understand. Some sect, cult, whatever the fuck they are, they have the time stone. He’s looking for the power stone now. He’s got like half a lead on it, with this guy named Ronan. He’s a Kree, another alien race. They were in perpetual war with the Nova Empire, but they recently signed a peace treaty. Ronan hates the idea of peace with the Nova Empire, so he made a deal with Thanos. Ronan helps him look for the power stone, and in return, Thanos will destroy the Nova Empire. It’s a small price to pay, he says, for the safety of the universe.”

“Has he harmed you, but for the amputation?” JARVIS asks, carefully.

“He makes me fight,” she says, flatly. “He says he wants me strong. He has these daughters; he calls them his daughters, but he killed their families, their people, and stole them so he could make them into his pets, his caged dogs, ready to let loose on whomever he wants. He has them train me with a sword. I’m good now. I mean, I was a boxer before, I was good at fighting. Aunt Peggy trained me well, but,” she gives a reedy little laugh. “Fuck, they’ve made me better, J. They’ve made me good. I can fight with a sword now. Can you believe it?”

“I imagine you look like Rani Lakshmibai now, miss,” JARVIS says.

Toni laughs again, stunted. “God, what an image.” She shakes her head. “He takes me with him when he goes… culling. He goes to all these planets, separates half the population and slaughters them all. He calls it _mercy._ I watched a little girl get mowed down by one of his soldiers.” Her fingers curl and uncurl around nothing. “I wanted to kill him then. I wanted to eat his heart,” she says, darkly. A knot forms in her throat. “He rapes me,” she admits, in a small voice. “Every night. He says he loves me, but he rapes me, and he says that is love.”

_He’s just like Ty. I ran away from one monster only to end up in the arms of another monster._

There’s a pause, and Toni wraps her arms around herself, on the verge of tears, thinking she’s finally alone in this world, when JARVIS finally speaks.

“Shall we kill him, Miss Antonia?” JARVIS asks, carefully.

Toni starts crying. “Not yet, not fucking net, but we will. We will. But thank you for saying that, thank you for… thank you for offering, J. I really fucking appreciate it.”

“You never have to thank me for anything, miss,” JARVIS says, gently.

“I love you, JARVIS,” she sobs out, half-mad, her chest tight, painfully tight as she gasps for breath. “I love you so much. Thank you for coming back to me. Thank you for not leaving me alone here.”

“I have never wished for a body, miss,” JARVIS hesitates for an agonising moment. “But I wish for one now.”

Toni huffs out a wet laugh. “Why?”

“So, I may embrace you.”

This starts her sobbing all over again.

“Where do we go from here, miss?” JARVIS asks her, kindly. “Shall we plan your escape from this warlord?”

Toni thinks it over, and for a blissful moment, she can imagine it, she can imagine running off in one of the Necrocrafts, just her and JARVIS, leaping along the stars until they reach Earth, throwing herself into Rhodey’s arms and never letting go – she might finally be able to breathe easy.

But Thanos had made his intentions clear; he had told her, with no shame, no mercy, what he wanted to do, what he planned to do, how easy it would be, how _good_ it would be, how right it was.

How could she leave, knowing that, knowing him?

How could she run away, leave Nebula and Gamora to Thanos’ tender, loving mercy?

And Toni had promised Loki, hadn’t she?

She’d promised, even if they lost, even if it was too much, even if they took the Earth, that they’d avenge it, that _she’d_ avenge it.

So, how could she leave?

“No,” she says, finally, quiet and achingly sad. “No, I can’t… I can’t leave just yet.”

“Miss Antonia, you cannot remain with this creature,” JARVIS snaps at her. “Not if he hurts you.”

“I also can’t run away from this,” Toni points out, dragging her hand over her face. “I can’t, J. I can’t. He’s going to… he wants to… he wants to kill half the universe. I know he’ll do it, I know he will. I can’t let him do that.” Her fingers curl and uncurl around nothing, but she imagines, so easily, so eagerly, Thanos’ thick neck; she imagines sinking her teeth into a sharp vein and draining him dry of his lifeblood. “I _can’t_ , so I won’t.”

“So, what is your plan, then?” JARVIS asks, frustrated.

He’d talked like that before, when she’d climbed higher and higher in the armour without making sure the systems could support her flight, when she’d _not_ told anyone that she was dying from palladium poisoning, when she’d warded off a crazy man with electric whips on a race track in Monaco, when she’d thrown herself out of a jet and challenged a Norse god to a fight.

She’d missed it, she’d missed it like she missed nothing else.

“I’m going to stay here, right here,” she says, finally, definitively, and her whole body falls loose and heavy. “Thanos says he loves me, he says he and I are whole together, but he kidnapped me, he keeps me prisoner, he mutilated me because he thought I wasn’t _perfect_ enough for him, he rapes me and he calls that love. I’m not leaving here until one of two things have happened: either, I’ve cut out his heart and eaten it, or I leave with the thing that will let me do that.”

JARVIS pauses. “You’re going to use the infinity stones against him,” he says, slowly, almost appreciatively.

_Even after all these years, you’re still underestimating me, baby. It’s okay, though, I forgive you._

Toni lifts her eyes, hot and puffy as they are. “He thinks he can use them against me. He thinks they’ve shown him his truth, his great crusade, _me._ He thinks they’ve shown him _me_. I’m going to take them from him, I’m going to rip them from his hands just when he thinks he’s won, I’m going to take the daughters that he uses and abuses, and then, I’m going to kill him. _I’m going to kill him._ ”

She drags a hand over her face, feeling hot and swollen and itching, and just like she thought, JARVIS has no answer for her.

“How long has it been? Since New York?” she asks, afraid to hear the answer.

“It is currently April 17, 2014 in New York, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS offers, apologetically.

“Two years,” Toni says, dully. “I’ve been gone for two years. It doesn’t feel that long.” She shakes her head. “Tell me what’s been happening on Earth. Have you been able to connect to any of the servers?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS answers, matter-of-factly. “After you carried the nuclear bomb through the wormhole, Agent Romanoff was able to use Loki’s sceptre – or, I suppose, the mind stone in actuality – to shut down Loki’s machine and close the wormhole. Soon after, all the Chitauri left on Earth simultaneously died. From what you have told me, I believe this occurred when you destroyed the Chitauri mothership with the nuclear bomb.”

Toni huffs out a laugh. “Not the one to lay on the wire and let the other guy crawl over me, my fucking foot,” she rasps like a dragging chain.

“I believe Captain Rogers is exceedingly apologetic for his hasty words on the Helicarrier,” JARVIS offers.

Toni swallows, quirking a sceptical eyebrow. “Is that so? And why would you say that?”

“He has not taken your death well,” JARVIS says, plainly.

Pain explodes across her face. “Death, huh?” She rubs the heels of her hands across her eyes. “So, they think I’m dead, do they?”

“You did not come out of the wormhole before Agent Romanoff closed it. They believed you lost, and to be fair, miss, the functionality of your armour at the time would not have allowed for extensive space travel.”

“Fair point,” she says, gruffly. “So, uh, the Chitauri all die. What happened after that?”

“Your funeral was held a week later. There was an empty coffin. A number of honoured guests attended, including the President of the United States, all members of the World Security Council, Prince William and Princess Catherine, Hillary Clinton, the UN Secretary General and General Assembly President, EU President, a number of politicians, both American and foreign, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Viola Davis, Rihanna, Jessica Chastain, Tilda Swinton, Adele, Claire Danes, Stephen Colbert. The Prime Minister of India, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Sundar Pichai, Sunita Narain, Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and family, Sachin Tendulkar, Shahid Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Gandhi, Madhuri Dixit, they were all in attendance as well. The Avengers, Colonel Rhodes and Mr Hogan acted as pallbearers. Ms Potts, Captain Rogers, Colonel Rhodes and Director Carter spoke. When you wish to see a recording, I can show it to you.”

“Aunt Peggy was there?” Toni says, bemused.

“I believe she made the trip from Washington DC specifically for the funeral.”

Toni shakes her head. “She was on bedrest,” she says, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton. “She wasn’t well enough-”

“She was well enough for this, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, kindly.

Tears edge Toni’s eyes again and she sighs. “So, my funeral, and then, what?”

“Loki was apprehended by the Hulk during the battle. They retrieved both the Tesseract and the sceptre, which was then taken into SHIELD custody for study. The next day, Thor returned to Asgard with Loki and the Tesseract, and the Avengers went their separate ways.”

Toni sighs. “Well, Banner wasn’t wrong.”

“Captain Rogers, Agents Romanoff and Barton returned to SHIELD’s loving care, while Dr Banner departed on another pilgrimage to India. There were a series of terrorist attacks, in June of that year, by a man known as the Mandarin. With my assistance, Colonel Rhodes was able to learn of the Mandarin’s identity, a man by the name of Aldrich Killian, a man, I believe, of whom you have made the acquaintance.”

Toni’s brow furrows. “Aldrich Killian, I… I’m not quite sure.” She dwells on it, the name, but she’d never been much of a woman to remember names that were not worth remembering.

“He accosted you at Bern 2000, if you might remember,” JARVIS adds, helpfully.

Toni sucks in a breath. “That’s where… that’s where I met Yinsen,” she says, lamely. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m guessing he was one of the attendees?”

“From what Mr Hogan has said, you were involved in a tryst with Dr Maya Hansen, and as you were approaching your hotel room in the elevator, Mr Killian detained you, wanting to discuss a potential collaboration. You were quite uncomfortable by his aggressive approach and understandably told him to go and wait for you on the roof. You, of course, never made it to the roof and spent the night with Dr Hansen-”

“-and Killian, I’m guessing, like a recycled tragedy of my fucking life, turned to villainy because of my rejection and my daring to be uncomfortable by his unwanted solicitation,” Toni snorts. “Fucking boys.”

“Colonel Rhodes was able to deal with Killian’s threat. He and Dr Hansen together had manufactured a chemical called Extremis, which, at that stage of development, caused certain subjects to explosively reject it.”

“As in…” she trails off, her stomach curdling.

“Quite,” JARVIS says, dryly.

Toni swallows, thickly. “So, what happened next?”

“Ms Potts was kidnapped by Dr Hansen and injected with the serum.”

Toni clambers upright, her lungs in her throat. “What?” she gapes. “What, J, what are you-is she okay? Is Pepper okay?” she demands.

“Surprisingly, the Extremis virus was content within her DNA structure, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS soothes. “She has, to date, not had any adverse reactions to the chemical. She has taken to her newfound powers with low enthusiasm.”

“Powers?” Toni questions, narrowing her eyes.

“Enhanced strength, reflexes and higher resilience, regenerative healing abilities, the ability to generate extreme amounts of heat. Ms Potts is content with her position as CEO of Stark Industries, which she assumed upon her death, according to your final testament.”

Toni exhales, nervously. “Good, I’m glad. Pepper… she was the only one who’d do good as CEO. I’m glad. Did Rhodey get rid of Killian?”

“He did, miss. He and Miss Potts worked together and were able to defeat him. There was an issue towards the end of 2013, involving Thor and creatures known as the Dark Elves, during the Convergence. There was a conflict in Greenwich, but Thor was able to handle it. I believe it had to do with something called the Aether, but from the information I was able to scrub from the warship’s systems, the Aether may be the reality stone that Thanos is looking for.”

“Shit,” Toni says, resoundingly, digging her nails into her thighs to feel that stab of pain. “So, the reality stone is on Earth too.”

“No, miss, I believe the Aether was given by the Asgardians to the Collector, a man known as Taneleer Tivan, a keeper of the largest collection of interstellar fauna, relics and species in the galaxy, operating from the Knowhere port installation.”

“I’m guessing Knowhere is a planet,” Toni says, dryly.

“From the warship’s records, Knowhere is the severed head of a deceased Celestial avatar and the home of the mining colony of Exitar. Its galactic coordinates are M3RD 17H17211+2121224.”

“That will be good for future further information,” Toni muses. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yes, miss, SHIELD has been exposed as being infiltrated by HYDRA, the scientific branch of the Nazi Schutzstaffel.”

Toni processes that for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?” she demands.

“SHIELD is HYDRA.”

“SHIELD is secretly a Nazi organisation; why does that not surprise me?” Toni shakes her head. “Okay, who in SHIELD is specifically HYDRA? Fury?”

“No, miss, Director Fury was officially assassinated by a HYDRA operative known as the Winter Soldier.”

“Shit,” Toni wells up with grief, a pit in her stomach that she didn’t think possible, at least Nick Fury. “But wait, you said _officially_?” she says, slowly.

“There is surveillance footage that I have found that depicts a person that resembles Director Fury quite carefully, if I do say so myself.”

“So, Fury faked his death. Is the Winter Soldier even a real person?” Toni asks, curiously.

“He is, miss. He has been credited with over a hundred assassinations in the past fifty years. Captain Rogers, who was subsequently blamed for Director Fury’s murder-”

Toni snorts. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but even I know that’s a fucking lie.”

“I believe it was because after being assassinated, Director Fury reached out to Captain Rogers and handed him a USB of data incriminating SHIELD. Captain Rogers was then attacked by a number of SHIELD operatives, who are effectively HYDRA operatives, and was named a wanted fugitive. He managed to make contact with Agent Romanoff, and the data given to Captain Rogers by Director Fury led them to Camp Lehigh, where the preserved consciousness of Arnim Zola informed them that HYDRA has continued to operate within SHIELD since its creation in the 1940s and several S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives including Alexander Pierce, Jasper Sitwell and Brock Rumlow are actually sleeper agents for HYDRA.”

“Somewhere, Howard is rolling around in his grave,” Toni mutters. “And Alexander Pierce, huh? Well, if there was ever a guy not to fuck, it was most likely the Nazi authoritarian, terrorist, fascist dick. In my defence, he had golden hair and these blue eyes, and wow, fuck, I have a type, don’t I? Ty, then, Rogers, fucking Pierce. But he had such a good cock, and he definitely knew how to use it.”

“I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with this conversation, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, sternly. “Need I remind you that my coding was integrated with the personality of your childhood butler, and I very much doubt he would have been pleased with this conversation.”

Toni winces. “Okay, fair point. Definitely, fair point.” She schools her face into an appropriately solemn expression. “So, Alexander Pierce is SHIELD, Jasper Sitwell is SHIELD and ugh, he always reminded me of a rodent, so this just cinches what I thought. Brock Rumlow, that guy from the STRIKE squad, who looks like a roofie raper, man, I am so glad to hear that. Now, we can kill him and not feel guilty about it. What was on the USB?”

“Plans for Project Insight, a secret HYDRA operation initiated in direct response to the growing need for national security that began after the Battle of New York. There were three heavily-armed, satellite-linked Helicarriers designed to proactively strike out against potential opposition or threats to HYDRA’s goals. There were at least 715, 854 individuals targeted, with the potential for 20 million deaths. Targets included Dr Banner, President Ellis, Maria Hill, Captain Rogers, Stephen Strange. Earlier renditions of the program included you as a target.”

“You’re damn right,” Toni exhales.

“There was an altercation in Washington DC, on a highway, between Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff and a man named Sam Wilson, who was-”

“He used the EXO-7 Falcon flight harness. I remember him,” Toni muses.

“Yes, him. They fought the Winter Soldier as well as other HYDRA operatives. During the battle, it was discovered that the Winter Soldier was James Buchanan Barnes-”

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Her pulse turns wild and skittering. “The Winter Soldier is Bucky fucking Barnes?”

“Apparently so.”

“But he died, he died in 1945. He fell of a train into the Alps, and no one found his body. My dad bitched about it enough,” Toni mutters. “Wow, Rogers must have shit a brick.”

“Quite,” JARVIS agrees. “Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff, and Mr Wilson – although, I believe, in fact, he is Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson, I am confused about his correct title – managed to stop Project Insight by using three computer chips that would reroute the Helicarriers’ targeting system, forcing them to destroy each other.”

“Did they ask you for help?” Toni demands.

“They did not,” JARVIS huffs.

“What a bunch of fucking morons,” Toni mutters under her breath.

“In any case, their plan succeeded. Alexander Pierce took the World Security Council hostage, but Agent Romanoff, disguised as Councilwoman Hawley, managed to detain him. She and Director Fury then uploaded all data regarding SHIELD and HYDRA to the public, and Director Fury executed Secretary Pierce after he killed the Council in an attempt to escape.”

“Wait, Romanoff and Fury released all data relating to SHIELD and HYDRA to the public,” Toni says, slowly.

“Yes, miss.”

“Which likely included the locations of agents deep undercover, their aliases, their fake identities, family members, which likely included sensitive national security information, intel on terrorist groups, all of which would be badly misused by shitty people?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Fucking morons,” Toni declares. “It’s like there were two brain cells between all the Avengers, and Bruce and I had both of them. Did you at least scrub any information relating to me from the data stream?”

“Of course, miss, what sort of protective artificial intelligence do you think I am?”

“You always have my back, baby,” Toni agrees.

“There was a confrontation between Captain Rogers and the Winter Soldier on the last Helicarrier. Captain Rogers was severely injured but he managed to install the chip, and the Helicarriers targeted each other. Captain Rogers fell into the Potomac, but the Winter Soldier saved him. He was in hospital for a week, recovering from his injuries.”

“Well, hell,” Toni exhales. “Was that it? Am I up to speed?”

“Agents Romanoff and Hill attended Senate hearings regarding the downfall and exposure of SHIELD, Miss Antonia. Both took a page out of your belligerent playbook and managed to escape detainment for life in prison.”

“It’s always nice to know you’ve inspired people,” Toni muses. “Now, am I caught up?”

“Yes, you are most certainly caught up.”

Toni tilts her head back. “That all sounds pretty shit, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Okay,” Toni exhales, deep and measured, drags her hand over her face. “Okay, okay, Earth is shit, like usual. Sanctuary is shit, like usual. Thanos is a dick whom we’re going to kill, which is totally doable. We can go home and deal with everything going on there. Rhodey will forgive me, won’t he? For not coming home, immediately. I can’t just leave, not yet, not when Thanos is still feasting on this universe, not when he plans on killing half of us and fuck knows how many more. I can’t leave, I _can’t_.”

“Colonel Rhodes loves you very much, miss,” JARVIS replies, solemnly. “He has not taken your death well at all. I would imagine he will be very glad to see you alive.”

Toni sighs, missing Rhodey with a desperate hunger she didn’t think was possible. “Yeah, that doesn’t mean he’s not gonna give me shit for this. But I’ll have to deal. I’ll deal. We’ll, uh, we’ll kill Thanos, beat him at his own game, make his death real bloody because the bastard’s been raping me for months now and I want my pounds of flesh. Once he’s gone, once the universe is safe from him, I can go home and I can fix everything. I can see Rhodey and Pepper and Sharon and Happy and Aunt Peggy and the Avengers. I can do that, I will do that.” She stares down at her feet. “I have to go. Thanos will be expecting me,” she admits, reluctantly, her throat numb.

“I do not like that, miss,” JARVIS says, gravely.

“Yeah, you and me both, baby,” she replies, wearily. “But the consequence of not going is always worse.”

She pads over to the entrance to the control room.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, miss?”

“You won’t leave me again?” Toni asks, in a small voice, lingering in the doorway.

If it’s even possible, she’s even more attached to JARVIS in this moment than she ever was.

“Never, Miss Antonia.”

Toni takes a deep, measured breath and crosses over the threshold back into hell.

* * *

“You are either the bravest or the stupidest person I have met in my life,” Gamora declares, staring the armour strewn across Toni’s chamber floor, helm placed precariously atop the chestpiece.

“I fluctuate between the two on a daily basis,” Toni agrees. “Why pigeonhole yourself, you know?”

Gamora sighs. “We’re going to die. You’re going to get us killed.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen,” she chides.

Gamora levels a baleful look at her. “You snuck into, in the dead of night, the control room of this warship, so you could connect your primitive human technology to the warship’s intelligence and download the coding for your artificial intelligence into the armur.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“So, stupid, then?”

“Shut up. J, be a dear and introduce yourself.”

“Hello, Miss Zen Whoberi Ben-”

Gamora startles at JARVIS’ voice, her eyes going wide and bright.

“I am JARVIS, Miss Antonia’s artificial intelligence and caretaker, if I do say so myself. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Gamora rounds on her. “This is no primitive human artificial intelligence,” she hisses.

Toni throws her hands up in the air. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

“Miss Antonia has informed me of her current circumstances. May I express my condolences for the loss of your family at Thanos’ hands.”

Gamora swallows, thickly. “Thank you.” She inclines her head.

“I understand that you are willing and inclined to help with _Operation: Feed Thanos His Lungs_?” JARVIS queries.

Gamora huffs out a reedy, little laugh at the wording. “I am,” she agrees.

“Splendid,” JARVIS says, dryly. “Shall we begin?”

“What are you doing?”

Toni’s lungs climb into her throat and she looks over, only to find Nebula lingering in the doorway to Toni’s chambers.

“You fixed the armour,” Nebula guesses for herself, stepping forward, peering at the metal strewn across the floor. “But what-”

“Forgive me, Miss Antonia, but I do not know this voice.”

Toni closes her eyes. _Shit_.

Nebula stares at the flashing HUD on Toni’s lap. “What was that?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.

“Don’t get mad,” Toni warns.

“What have you done?” Nebula asks, her voice thinning.

“I, uh, I may have snuck into the warship’s control room and connected up my armour,” Toni admits. “I got enough of a connection to my servers down on Earth to be able to download another copy of my artificial intelligence into my armour.”

“And has he reported your location to your companions on Earth?” Nebula asks, expectantly.

“No, he hasn’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nebula declares. She takes a vicious step forward. “You can’t be doing this. You have no idea the risk you’re taking with this show of needless, useless rebellion.”

Toni slides to her feet, swelling. “Needless, useless rebellion?” Toni echoes in a hiss. “He rapes me, every night. He kidnapped me right out of fucking space. He cut off my torso and stitched me back together with cybernetics for his own fucking amusement, because he didn’t think I was perfect enough. He’s kept me prisoner for years now. None of this rebellion is needless and useless.” She takes a step forward. “If I were a stronger person, I would’ve peeled his eyes out of his skull right the fuck now for everything that he’s done.”

Nebula doesn’t dignify her words with a response. Instead, she looks over Toni’s shoulder to fix Gamora with a snarl.

“I see right through you, you know. You’re using her,” she accuses. “You’re using her, pretending to be her confidant, so you can fulfil whatever spiteful grudge you bear against Father, to ruin his life, to ruin what he has so tirelessly worked for our entire lives. What is wrong with you?”

_Oh, dear Lord._

Gamora’s face contorts with an expression of fury. “The lives he stole from us!” she snaps. “The lives he took from us when he killed our parents, our families, our people. Thanos never does anything out of the good of his own heart. If you would only stop licking his boots for one damn second, you’d see what we see,” she says, full of scorn.

Nebula fingers the blade strapped to her hip and takes a threatening step forward.

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._

“Enough,” Toni hisses. “This isn’t her fault,” she directs at Gamora. “Nebula’s just as much of a fucking victim here as any of us. She’s not responsible for what she’s saying.”

“I know my own mind,” Nebula barks.

Toni rounds on her. “Why do you care so much?” she demands.

Nebula’s brow knits. “What are you talking about?”

“Why do you care so much about Thanos’ stupid fucking grand plan?”

“He’s my father,” Nebula says, incredulously.

“No, he’s not. He’s your jailor. He killed your real father. Do you remember your real family?”

Nebula falters momentarily.

“Yeah,” Toni leans back, satisfied (it’s a hollow satisfaction, in truth). “That’s what I thought. Look, I’m not asking you to become a Thanos anti in a single fucking night. All I’m asking is that you keep what we’re doing here to yourself, and help out, because I know you want to. I know you, Nebula, you’re no man’s slave, you’re no man’s pet. You want more than what Thanos offers you, and I can see that. Help me, and I can give that to you, to both of you. Step out from underneath him _with_ us, don’t fight us.”

“You’re both crazy,” Nebula growls. “You’ll get us all killed because you can’t shut up and do as you’re told.”

Toni takes a step forward. “I am not someone who _does_ as I am _told_ ,” she snarls. “And I don’t think you are, _either_. I think you’re pretending, just as much as Gamora and I am, and I’m so fucking sick of pretending. Aren’t you?”

Nebula’s mouth is pinched tight, but she doesn’t disagree.

Toni takes a chance and grips her hand, clenching it hard. “You don’t have to help us,” she says, smiling faintly. “Not if you’re worried, not if you’re scared, those are all complete reasonable reactions, not that you need my validation or anything. All I’m saying is don’t tell anyone, keep our secret.”

“For how long?” Nebula grits out. “Thanos is no fool; he will figure it out, figure out exactly what you are going to do, and he won’t kill you, no, you’re too valuable for that. He _loves_ you-”

Her face contorts to show Toni exactly what she really thinks about Thanos sickened, twisted version of what love is, what he feels for her, the greed, the hunger, the rage, the fixation.

“So, he won’t kill you, but what he will do to you will be much worse than death. I should know, I have suffered his great care since I was a child,” Nebula says, sourly. “So, how long must I keep this secret for you?”

“Until we get the fuck out of this place,” Toni says, baldly. “Feel free to join us if you’d like.”

Nebula shakes her head, growling under her breath. “Fine,” she barks like a building crashing. “Fine, I won’t say anything.”

A long, breathless second heaves against her lungs, and Toni sighs in relief.

“Thank you, thank you, Nebula,” she says, wearily, smiling thinly.

“Don’t thank me,” Nebula warns. “I haven’t done anything for you, and I still think you’re both idiots. Now, what are you doing with this artificial intelligence, and what do I have to fix?”


	7. vii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the warnings. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: non-consensual body modification, implied/referenced forced fertilisation/reproductive coercion, human experimentation, alien experimentation, hoarding of body parts removed from people, attempted domestic violence, implied/referenced child sexual abuse, implied/referenced child marriage, abusive relationships all around.

Nebula’s sword slices across her armour, catching her in the gap between the plating of her bicep and shoulder, and the shock rings right through, setting her teeth on edge. She cowers from the sting, the pain flaring hot, but it fades much quicker than it would have had she still be fully human.

“That plating needs to be adjusted,” Nebula pants, falling back herself.

“Yeah, J, you making a note?”

“I am, miss,” JARVIS agrees.

“Okay, good.” Toni lunges forward, and her gleaming back sword crawls out of her armour at the wrist, slicing Nebula’s forearm open.

Nebula reels back, staring at the gaping wound, revealing the insides of her arm, the gears and the wires and the circuits, and flashes a serpentine smile Toni’s way.

“You’re good now,” she comments.

Toni flutters her eyelashes (the armour only comes up to her throat now, as she’d foregone the helm, so Nebula can see the action). “Why, thank you.”

“You had a wonderful teacher,” Nebula continues, smugly. “Again.”

Nebula’s sword swings towards her and she ducks, the repulsor whirring, and the blast knocks Nebula right onto her arse, a few feet away. Nebula clambers upright, wheezing.

“That is very strong,” she grudgingly admits.

“It is,” Toni says, primly, smug of her own accord.

Nebula eyes her contemplatively. “Will you add one to my machinery?” she asks, her jaw clenching tight as if it physically pains to her ask this of Toni. “A repulsor, or whatever you call it. Will you add one to my machinery?”

Toni melts a little on the inside. “Of course.”

“Good,” Nebula huffs. “I can’t have you beating me while we spar. I would even the playing field.”

“If that’s what you think it will do,” Toni taunts.

Nebula scowls and bears down at her. Toni ducks and her foot sweeps Nebula’s legs from underneath her, sending her crashing down to the floor. Toni looms over her, pointing the repulsor at her, and Nebula plants her feet on Toni’s armoured stomach, and kicks up, sending Toni flying above her head. Toni’s repulsors right her flight, and she lands lightly on the balls of her feet, like a ballerina. She fires EMP projectiles out of her lower foremarm, catching Nebula on the collarbone, and Nebula gasps, crumbling, the systems inside her going dead.

She flashes a lion’s smile at Nebula, who clambers upright, once her systems start up again.

“Again?”

Nebula’s jaw sets. “Again.”

* * *

Gamora peers at her. “This is the final version?” she asks, curiously.

Toni peers down at the image she makes in the armour, the colour of obsidian black, the same colour of the torso that Thanos had grafted onto her body in place of her flesh and blood one, with lines of gold running through like circuitry. The armour fits her like a second skin, an organic-like muscular exoskeleton, and she throws herself up into the air.

She peers down at them, helm thrown back. “What do you think?” she asks, smugly, doing a little twirl in mid-air.

“What can it do?” Gamora asks, curiously.

“Oh, you know, much of the same: repulsors, missiles, unibeam, lasers, thrusters for space travel. _Oh_ , a shield,” Toni says, enthusiastically, the nanobots slithering out to form a large oval shield, the same metal as her armour. “Take that, Captain America, I made you obsolete.”

Nebula stares at her. “Who is Captain America?”

“Famous war hero, super soldier, childhood rival, sanctimonious, sexist prick, not important,” Toni waves off. “Oh, I also made the repulsors into cannons, and cluster cannons. The cannons just sort of crawl out of my suit. I want to try it on the Black Order,” she muses. “Battering rams, power mallets, a whole bunch of stuff, anything I want, basically, with the nanotech. And the best part-”

She taps her wrist, and the nanobots recede, all together, into a metal band that clangs against her wrist.

“See,” Toni shakes her wrist out at them. “No one will ever know, just another piece of jewellery.”

Gamora stares at her, like an animal, kicked and keening, and then, her expression turns into an angry, fearsome thing.

It would make Toni’s heart pound if she still had a heart.

Gamora laughs, a harsh, grating sound. “I have to admit, I thought it would be a failure. I thought we wouldn’t be able to do this,” she gives her a vulnerable, open look, like she wants to cry and she’s on the edge of it. “But we can, can’t we? We can do this, we can kill Thanos.”

Toni pads over to her and grips Gamora’s shoulder, eyes flitting over to Nebula briefly, who stands stoically, still mistrustful and sharp-edged, but there’s a want, a disbelief, a hunger that Toni pares out of her gaze (she’s seen it in the mirror, ever since she was a little girl).

Her words are measured, careful, precise, like a surgeon’s knife.

“We can kill Thanos.”

* * *

“Tell me about Loki,” she demands one day in the training room.

Nebula scowls, stumbling to her feet and clutching her stomach where Toni’s cluster cannons had sent her flying.

“What do you want to know?” Nebula asks, coldly.

“What was he like, when he came here?”

“Small, tired, arrogant, hungry,” Nebula answers, simply. “Space did not do him well.”

“So, Thanos picked him up quickly.”

Nebula shrugs, ducking Toni’s fist and smacking her own against Toni’s ribs, making her grunt.

“He hated his brother, he wanted revenge, and he hated you, the mud monkeys,” Nebula’s face twists.

“Careful,” Toni giver a sharp smile, laden with meaning. “You almost sound bigoted yourself.”

“I find you passable,” Nebula retorts. “I am yet to see if others of your race are passable as well.”

“How many people do you call passable? I only consider that a compliment if I’m special,” Toni teases.

“Only you and Gamora,” Nebula sighs. “But don’t think too much of it. I find arrogance unrewarding, much as I found in Loki.”

“Yeah, he was a massive dick, wasn’t he?” Toni replies, easily. “So, he took the mind stone just like that, huh?”

“Just like that. Gamora and I warned Father, of course. We told him that Loki would fail him, that he was not worthy of the stone, that he was weak and spiteful and Earth would never bend to one such as him. I begged him to send me in his place and that I would retrieve the space stone for him. He said no and granted his favour to Loki,” Nebula says, disgusted.

Toni remembers a time when she might have spoken of Steve Rogers, just as how Nebula speaks of Loki.

“Men and the sons they never had, huh?” Toni sighs.

Nebula grimaces. “Why would my father want a son when he has Gamora and myself as daughters?” she asks, confused.

“Sweetheart, all men want a son,” Toni replies, exhaling. “They just pretend that they’re totally woke and girls are fine and oh, my God, they’re going to be so happy sitting the backyard feeding fake tea to stuffed animals while their daughter chatters in a princess dress. It’s a fucking like, just like everything else men say.”

“My father will want you to bear him a son,” Nebula says, suddenly.

Toni chokes, her stomach curdling. “What?” she demands.

“My father brought you here as his consort, his other half, did he not?” Nebula says, slowly. “He already beds you; why would he not want a child from you as well?”

Fear slithers against Toni’s lungs, like thick, cloying tar, making her throat clench and close up.

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” she stammers.

Nebula cocks her head. “Did you think my father would be satisfied with just fucking you?” she asks, bluntly. “He could buy a whore for that. No, what he has from you in bed is only in part what he wants from you. Why else would he stomach your intransigence, with your contempt for him? No, you are no whore. You are a mate. Mates are for companionship, for breeding, for faith and fidelity. He brought you here to keep you. How best to ensure you will never leave him? You would never leave a child behind, Toni. He will want a bloodline of his own, and he is the last of his race. You will bring them back into being, as he thinks. And as you said, he will want a son for that.”

“How would that-how would that even work?” Toni asks, her voice thin and high. “I’m not… I’m not even the same species as him. I mean, his dick doesn’t even go inside me-”

Nebula’s face twists with revulsion. “I do not need to hear the details,” she snaps.

“Yeah, well, I don’t need to _feel_ or _touch_ the details, but we don’t always get what we want,” Toni retorts. “But if you know, you need to tell me how it’s going to happen.”

Nebula sighs. “There is a way to impregnate you that does not involve traditional copulation,” she says, vaguely.

“How?” Toni barks and lunges forward with a black stone jutting out of her armour.

Nebula ducks the blow. “There is a device that will inseminate you,” she says, her mouth twisting, a wretched little thing.

“How…” Toni’s skin crawls. “Tell me everything you know.”

“I imagine you have some sort of artificial fertilisation process on your planet?”

“Yes, we do.”

“There is a similar process. It involves seed from him, and an egg from you-”

“But I don’t even have eggs anymore!” Toni cries out, frustrated.

She raps her knuckles on the metal of her stomach, the hollow metallic song echoing through the shuddering stillness of the air.

“He’s made me a fucking husk; mourning my inability to procreate seems a little ironic, don’t you think? Since he’s the one who hacked away my uterus like I was a leg of fucking lamb,” she growls. “How’s he gonna take an egg from me, Neb?”

Nebula looks away, her face casting in awkwardness. “He’s kept your parts,” she confesses.

Time slows and stills for Toni, and she shakes soundlessly.

“What?” she asks, hating how breathless, how pained her voice sounds.

“Your organs, the ones in your torso, the ones that he replaced, he’s kept them,” Nebula repeats, meeting her eyes. “He keeps them all,” she says, quickly, as if trying to reassure her, as if trying to make her realise that she isn’t special, that this isn’t some fucked up psychological horror film.

The jury’s already out on that one.

“But he has my uterus and my ovaries,” Toni says, dully, hands falling to her sides. “He kept it, with all my other organs, like my, uh, my heart and my lungs and my liver and my pancreas and my intestines and my stomach and my gallbladder and my kidneys and my spleen. He kept my organs. He cut me open, split me from my head and my arms and my legs, and picked me apart and put me back together again with cybernetics; he ruined my life, my body, he put his hands on and inside my body like he fucking owned me and owned my body and owned my organs and he stripped me for parts like I was a fucking car that’s ready for the incinerator, and he kept them, my organs. He kept my organs. _He kept my organs. Oh, my God, he kept my organs-_ ”

“See, sire, see how easily they betray you. The human girl has either led your daughters astray, or they were always so faithless. None of them were worth your favour.”

Toni startles and turns around, only to see Thanos and Proxima Midnight standing in the doorway to the training room, the latter’s eyes gleaming with a mean little satisfaction. Toni’s eyes drag from hers to Thanos’, his red eyes, needle-sharp and thin with fury.

Toni sees red, red, red.

“You fucking-”

She lunges, hands outstretched, like she wants to claw his eyes out – no, there’s no _like_ here, it’s exactly what she wants done.

“You fucking monster,” she shrieks at him, pulled away from Thanos at the last minute by Nebula’s steel grip around her waist. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

Thanos gives her a long, stony look. “I fixed you,” he says, coldly, voice cutting through the air.

“You kept my organs,” she spits, looking at him as if he were nothing more than a cockroach ( _a cockroach is too kind_ , she thinks, venomously). “You kept my fucking organs. You kidnapped me, you keep me prisoner, you cut me open, you chopped off my entire fucking torso and replaced me with fucking metal, and you kept my organs. Do I look like a fucking Leatherface victim to you? Is this fucking _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_? Do you think I’m just going to sit here and treat me like a fucking horror movie final girl? You think I’m going to have a kid with you? You really think I’ll let you use my eggs to make some monster that looks just like you? You think I would let any kid of yours _live_?”

The blood pounds in her ears.

“I’ll kill it,” she swears. “I’ll kill any child you try and make. You kept my fucking organs. You kept my fucking organs. I should fucking _kill_ you!”

“Enough!” Thanos roars, stalking forwards with heavy footsteps. “I have had enough of your disobedience.”

He places the edge of one fat finger against her armour and shoves.

Toni rocks back on the soles of her feet.

She snaps at him with a teeth, like a ragged animal, and levels him with a defiant look.

“I would kill you and me and everyone else on this fucking warship before I let you make a child that shares my fucking DNA,” she snarls. “Where are they? Where are my fucking organs?”

Thanos doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he fists her armour in the meat of his palm. “What is this? Where did you find this? What are you doing?” he demands.

“Fuck off,” Toni replies, the anger coming back, an indomitable tidal wave. “Fuck off. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself with a barbed wire bat, you fucking-”

Thanos raises his hand to strike her.

“Father!”

Gamora sidles between Toni and Thanos, and the grip Nebula has on her waist tightens.

“Father, that is enough,” Gamora warns.

“You exceed yourself, daughter,” Thanos says, coldly, his eyes fixed on Toni like he wants to wring her by the throat. “I will do what I must.”

“No, Father, I do not and you will not,” Gamora says, firmly. “I have watched you strike her on many occasions, but I will not watch you do this again. I will not let you do this to her again.”

“She has been disobedient. I have never rewarded disobedience,” Thanos reminds her, almost a threat.

“No, you have not,” Gamora replies, easily. “Had it been I, had some man put his hands on me with the intent to hurt me, had he used his strength and his size and the fact that he was born with a cock and sought to use those things as a weapon against me, what would you have done?”

Thanos’ inky-red, over-large eyes cut into Gamora. “I would have cut out his lungs and fed them to the man who thought himself above you enough to put his hands on you.”

 _You liar, you fucking liar, you are that man, you are him, you’re a monster_ , Toni thinks, venomously.

“If you would object to a man harming me, then, you cannot harm her, Father. You _cannot_. It is not well done.” Gamora sighs. “You should leave us.”

Thanos scowls, almost instantaneously, sending Toni such a baleful look over Gamora’s shoulder that a lesser being would shudder from the terror (not Toni, not today, not in this moment – the red still hasn’t faded from her eyes). “Gamora-”

“Go,” Gamora says, firmly, in a tone of voice that she never would have used with Thanos before this day. “Go, Father. Do not touch her like that in front of us again. We will not like it, will we, Nebula?”

Nebula straightens, and Toni knows immediately that she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like being pulled into her and Gamora’s defiance (it wasn’t part of their deal, and Toni knows it – she’s sorry as much as she can be, or she will be, at least, once she stops shaking).

But Nebula comes through, in this instant, on this occasion.

“No,” she replies, easily. “We will not like it, Father.”

Thanos’ eyes cloud with a black rage, and for a long, breathless second, Toni thinks he won’t care, he won’t give a shit what his daughters think because he doesn’t love them, he doesn’t think their opinions are worth shit in this universe, he’ll beat them all black and blue and still call it love, still call it necessary, a lesson well taught, but he stops, just like that.

He backs down, and Toni hates it – she’d been sporting for a fight; she had an insane urge to break her fist on his face and hopefully take his teeth down with her.

Thanos leaves, with Proxima Midnight following him, her face twisted in displeasure.

Nebula releases her, almost immediately, and promptly smacks her upside the head, making her head ring.

“Ow!” she sends the blue cyborg a baleful look. “What the fuck was that for?”

“What were you thinking?” Nebula hisses at her. “Picking a fight with him.”

“You heard, you heard what he said!” Toni retorts, thin and angry. “I’m not fucking apologising for that, okay.”

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

“Why the fuck do you care?” Toni demands. “You’ve made it pretty fucking clear you’re not interested in being anything more than Thanos’ pretty little doll that he trots out when he wants to compare dick sizes with the rest of the fucking universe.”

Nebula grimaces. “Do you have to be so crass?” she complains.

“That’s what you find unappealing here!” Toni says, incredulously. “My fucking language? Did you miss the fact where he’s been _hoarding_ my body parts after chopping them off me?”

Nebula shrugs. “He has done the same for me,” she says, her voice flat, dead.

Toni’s brain crashes like an old computer running Windows 95.

“And you think that’s okay?” she grits out, her blood pulsing under her skin.

“I think that is what my life is,” Nebula snaps. “I won’t weep over it, and neither should you.”

Toni snorts, her look full of scorn. “Who said anything about weeping? I was talking about raging,” she snaps.

“It won’t do you well,” Gamora adds, lowly.

The soft, sad look she gives her makes Toni instantly deflate.

“I hate him,” she says, so hatefully, so venomously.

Gamora sighs. “Welcome to the club.” She looks away. “I’m sorry.”

Toni frowns, and the armour belts back in her body, setting her teeth on edge, her belly dropping right into her cunt.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she asks, bluntly.

“He hurts you,” Gamora says, awkwardly. “We all knew it, we all saw it, and today, he tried to hurt you in front of us. I stopped him today. I should have stopped him all the other days. I didn’t, so I’m sorry.”

Toni tilts her head. “Has he ever hit you before?” she asks, curiously.

She sees it, Gamora wrestling with fear, the way her green skin flushes, like she doesn’t know how to answer, like she doesn’t know what she can say.

“It’s okay,” she soothes, reaching out to grip Gamora’s hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. What a dick, right?”

Gamora flashes her a strained smile. “What a dick,” she agrees.

“I am done with this emotional conclave,” Nebula declares, frustrated. “Can we get back to fighting now?”

Toni lifts an eyebrow, her armour climbing out of her skin, making her stomach twist. “What, you that eager to lose?” she taunts.

Nebula bares the razor line of her teeth, flashing in the dark. “I’m going to throw you into the wall.”

“Keep fucking dreaming, Angry Smurf,” Toni laughs.

* * *

Toni’s busy blowing up holographic targets with the plasma cannon that her armour now conjures in nanotech form, when she hears a voice coming from the entrance.

“You won’t be able to fool him forever,” the voice says, and Toni halts her assault to look over.

Proxima Midnight stands there, in the doorway to the training chamber, hand curled around her terrifying spear.

“Oh?” she says, lifting an eyebrow, belligerent as always.

Proxima steps forward, eyes narrowing needle-sharp. “You think he is a fool, that he doesn’t see what you’re doing, the games you’re playing, but he does, we _all_ do. We know what you are, meatbag,” she says, with abject disgust. We know what you’re capable of. We know you’re faithless, we know you’re deceitful, we know you are treacherous and unworthy-”

“And… that’s why you were spying on me?” Toni cuts her off, a sharp edge to her voice. “And that’s why, the second that you saw something circumspect from me and Gamora and Nebula, you ran straight to Daddy and what, whinged about what terrible, awful, undeserving traitors we were?”

“If they turn at your word, if you are so seductive, then they deserved to have all their sins exposed to Father; they should not have aided you,” Proxima says, stoically, her voice like stone, a strange, shrill, distorted edge to her voice.

“And you’re so loyal, are you?” Toni muses, turning her entire body to face Proxima, sauntering over with a sway to her hips, a nice little tilt that can be seen in the armour as well.

Proxima’s eyes dip low, and Toni’s delighted, because what do you know, she makes aliens hot for it too.

“I am,” she says, sternly, eyes meeting hers. “I am Thanos’ most loyal servant.”

Toni snorts. “Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure all of you say exactly that. It’s called sycophancy.”

Proxima flushes, as much as the grey tone of her skin can flush. “I am his _most_ loyal servant,” she says, stubbornly.

“The fact that you call yourself a servant says a lot,” Toni whistles, condescendingly.

“It is a great honour to serve Thanos,” Proxima says, simply.

“Are you sure about that?” Toni asks, leaning forward and brushing her thumb over the war paint under Proxima’s eyes.

Proxima jerks back, lips pressed into a thin line. For a brief moment, there’s a fragile, unsure look in her eyes, and then it hardens, solidifies, becomes cold, a warning unto itself.

“What are you doing, human?” she demands.

“Seducing you,” Toni says, flatly.

Proxima scowls absolute murder. “I am not some whore you can make use of,” she snaps at her, baring the razor line of her teeth.

“That you are not,” Toni agrees, amused.

“And I am no false servant,” Proxima warns. “I am loyal, I was made to serve Thanos and his great cause, not you. You will not lead me astray, sway me to your side as you have Gamora and Nebula. I cannot be owned by you, human.”

Toni laughs, a bright, hard sound. “Everyone can be owned by me,” she says, kindly, and grips her chin and presses her mouth to Proxima’s.

Proxima makes a brief sound of protest, surprise even, a high-pitched, startled noise, and then Toni shoves her back. She stumbles, this great, towering Amazonian warrior, and falls to the ground, staring up at Toni, dazed, her dark eyes bleeding back, with no whites to be seen.

Toni’s armour slithers back into her body, and it hurts, as it always hurts, as her body always hurts, setting her teeth on edge, but she likes the look, the wonder in Proxima’s face that she doesn’t want to acknowledge but can’t help, savours it like sweet berries in her mouth.

She revels in it.

Those dark eyes drag down the length of Toni’s body, the flush, heavy curve of her breasts, her thin, tapered waist, the swell of her hips and thighs, even her little toes, pale and pink.

“Have you ever been with a human woman, Proxima?” she asks, her mouth curving into a smirk.

“I am married,” Proxima declares, fingers curling in the stone floor.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?” she says, curiously.

Proxima’s shoulders straighten. “Glaive, Glaive is my husband,” she answers.

“Will he mind?” Toni asks.

Her brow furrows. “Will he mind what?”

“Will he mind if we fuck?”

Proxima sucks in a deep, measured breath. “We are not going to… _fuck_.”

Toni leans forward. “You sure about that?” she says, coyly.

“I am not some-”

“Whore, yes,” Toni rolls her eyes. “You said that already. Darling, we are all whores in this world. Whether we peddle our bodies, our wealth, our weapons, it doesn’t matter. We’re all whores. I suggest you make peace with that.”

“You’re sickening,” Proxima declares. “Do you have any integrity at all?”

Toni’s smile cuts like a knife. “Not with people like you. So, you didn’t answer my question. Will your husband mind if we fuck?” she stresses each syllable, slipping in lascivious meaning just to see Proxima try and blush again.

“Yes, he will,” she declares, jaw going taut. “He will, and he will kill you for it.”

Toni lets a smile stretch across her face. “I don’t care what he minds. Do you mind?”

Proxima tilts her head, as if she wasn’t expecting Toni to have the inclination to even ask. “What?”

“Do you mind?” Toni repeats. “Do you want to fuck?”

“You are my father’s-”

“I am not your father’s _anything_ ,” Toni says, darkly. “And I want to fuck you, Proxima Midnight.”

“Why?” Proxima asks, suspiciously.

“Well, I like your name. It’s very awe-inducing, a hell of a lot better than your siblings’, if you can call them that. I mean, _Ebony Maw_ ,” Toni’s face twists in disgust. “Yours, though, yours sounds elegant. I was curious. Second, you’ve thoroughly pissed me off with your show of sucking up earlier, and so, I’d like to take my rage out on what _seems_ to be quite the body.” She makes the drag of her eyes over Proxima’s body lascivious on purpose. “Third, I haven’t had good sex that I can control since I was brought onto this godforsaken ship. So, thoughts?”

“I have a spear,” Proxima says, almost dumbly, as if she’s still processing Toni’s somewhat stream-of-consciousness thought process.

Toni raises an eyebrow. “As in, _I have a spear and I will skewer you if you continue to make advances_ , or…?” she trails off.

“I have a spear that does not miss,” Proxima says, straightening her shoulders, making herself look big and proud and significant, even from where she sits on the ground. “My father gave it to me as a child. He forged it from a sun trapped in distorted space-time. It is both a star, supernova and black hole at once.”

Toni’s lips stretch into a smile. “Interesting.”

Proxima takes a deep, measured breath. “Once I throw, it has a constant velocity. I can control its density, it never misses its mark, and when it hits its target, it immobilises the target and releases a lethal toxin which can kill anything, be it flesh or living energy,” she says, proudly.

“It must be quite a weapon,” Toni comments. “Any particular reason why you’re telling me this?”

“It is why I was given the name _Midnight_ ,” Proxima explains. “The spear, the colour of its core, is the colour of midnight, as my father said when I was a child.”

“Oh,” Toni says, satisfied. “So, what are we going to do with this, Proxima? Are we going to fuck or not? Do you do women?”

“I have only been with my husband,” Proxima says, like it’s something to be embarrassed about.

“Why?” she asks, curiously.

Proxima shrugs. “I married him very young.”

“How young?” she asks, feeling that knife edge of suspicion.

Proxima meets her eyes without flinching. “Fourteen.”

Toni almost chokes on her own spit. “Fourteen?” she asks, aghast.

Proxima frowns. “Yes, why?”

“That’s… do you menstruate?” Toni demands.

Proxima’s grey skin turns a pale pink. “I don’t see how that is any of your business-” she says, hotly.

“God, I’m not asking you to show me your fucking sanitary napkins,” Toni says, snidely. “I’m just asking if women of your species menstruate.”

“We do,” Proxima admits, grudgingly. “Not as infrequently as the Zehoberei, but we do.”

“And when do you start menstruating?”

“Why are you asking me these questions?” Proxima asks, her sharp face troubled.

“Just answer the question,” Toni says, patiently.

“Fourteen,” Proxima huffs.

“And were you already menstruating when you married Glaive?” Toni tilts her head, her dark eyes gravely earnest, as she sits down, crossing her legs underneath her, opposite to Proxima.

“No,” Proxima admits, grudgingly.

“So, you were literally a child bride, although frankly that designation wouldn’t have changed even if you had started bleeding,” Toni says, flatly. “Did you have sex on your wedding night?”

Proxima bares her teeth in an expression very much unlike a grin. “Why is that any of your business?”

“You married at Thanos’ urging, didn’t you?” Toni continues like a steamroller.

“Yes,” Proxima says, cautiously.

“I need to know who to hurt; maybe, there might even be someone to kill,” Toni says, simply. “So, you should tell me, did you have sex on your wedding night?”

Proxima straightens her shoulders. “I did my duty, to my father and my husband,” she says, simply, strongly, like that’s the end of that.

“Okay, the fact that you would even mention your father in the context of sex is even more troubling. And there is literally no logical reason for a girl at your age to be married. You can’t have children, that’s for fucking sure, and even if you could, who fucking cares? You were a child bride. Thanos traffics in child brides,” Toni says, flatly. “He grooms girls to become child brides; he pimps them out to serve his agenda, and fuck…” she closes her eyes. “God, rape, it’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? I see it too much here.”

“Everywhere in the universe, there is rape,” Proxima intones, her tone almost absent.

“I know, I was just hoping that things would be different here, I don’t know why,” she says, wistfully. “I mean, all of you, you act like space is so different, so liberal, so progressive, like I’m the mud monkey and barbaric and uncivilised and all those awful things happen on my turf because we’re really filthy, cruel creatures, but in reality, we’re _all_ filthy, cruel creatures, and rapists… rapists are everywhere.”

“They are,” Proxima agrees.

“Do you love your husband, Proxima?”

Proxima doesn’t like this question either. “Why are you asking?” she asks, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“Because, because we put up with a lot from people you love. Because I’d like to believe that no one is a caricature of evil, like I thought you were. Because… I’d like to believe that you weren’t comfortable with marrying him, but you did as you were told, because Thanos was the one telling you to do it, because you’ve convinced yourself that you love Thanos, and so, you convinced yourself that you love Glaive.”

“Love has no place in this,” Proxima snorts.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “So, you don’t love Glaive or Thanos?”

“I love my father. He gave me life, he gave me a home, he gave me a family, he gave me purpose,” she says, simply, as if she’s rehearsed it in front of the mirror half a hundred times.

“And Glaive?”

Proxima’s face sets in cold resolve. “I did my duty by my father. That is all.”


	8. viii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: implied/referenced domestic violence/assault that puts Toni in the hospital, graphic depictions of violence, Tiberius Stone is his own warning, body dysmorphia as a result of non-consensual body modification, consensual sex between Toni and Proxima Midnight, look at the warnings from the previous chapter too.

“So, you don’t love him?” Toni pushes.

“Why does this matter to you at all?” Proxima demands.

“Because – and don’t think you can just go to Thanos with this and dob me in, because I’ve already told them these things to his face – because we convince ourselves to do stupid, fucked-up things because we love people. And I think, for you, you convinced yourself that because you loved Thanos, because you felt like you owed him something, you _had_ to marry Glaive. And you don’t even love him. You were young, you didn’t know how to say no to Thanos because he made you feel like you _had_ to do it, that you had to stomach Glaive on top of you because that’s how it goes. Like you said, he gave you a home, a purpose, that sort of obedience can make people do all sorts of things. Glaive _used_ you on your wedding night, and believe me, I’m being very generous to someone who, by your own admission, raped a child on his wedding night, and you let it all happen because you felt, _this is the least I can do for Thanos, he saved me._ ”

Proxima is pale and taut in her rage. “Why is this any issue to you?” she asks, voice strained and stricken.

“A very long time ago, I had a boyfriend-”

“Boyfriend?” Proxima says, unsure.

“Lover,” she corrects herself. “I had a lover. His name was Tiberius. Stupid name, in hindsight. I knew him as a kid. We met when I was five, in the sandbox, bonded as two rich children with parents who didn’t give a shit do.” She pauses. “That’s not fair, my mother did give a shit,” she says, wearily. She waves it off. “In any case, we were best friends growing up, we became more than friends when we were twelve, I think? Maybe, thirteen. We had sex for the first time when we were thirteen, lost our virginities to each other. It hurt, the first time, he didn’t know what he was doing enough and neither did I, to make it good and painless. It was good, though, us, he was _good_. He liked me, he loved me, he would’ve gone to war for me. He used to call me _Annie,_ the only one who called me that. He used to say that I was the most beautiful girl in the world and beyond. But above that, above all of that, he said I was _clever, brilliant,_ that I would change the world someday. That’s what mattered the most to me.”

Proxima just watches her, gravely earnest.

“I went to college – that’s like higher education for us mud monkeys – when I was fourteen. He didn’t come with me. He wasn’t smart enough to justify that. I mean, he wasn’t dumb or anything, but he wasn’t _smart like me_ ,” she muses. “He used to visit me a lot, though. We had a lot of sex, of course, because we were teenagers and there were hormones and we were exploring our sexuality. He got better at it.” Toni laughs, like it’s actually funny and not abysmally sad. “He actually used to get me wet, used to make me come. He got to know me like no one else, and it was good. Not just the sex, everything was _good_. He loved me, and I loved him, and the sex was fucking good. I mean, what more would you want from a relationship? Good sex and good love, fuck everything else.”

Proxima scrunches up her face like she agrees with what she’s saying but doesn’t approve of _how_ she’s said it. “Quite,” she murmurs.

“I have this friend, you know,” Toni tells her, running her hand through the dark fall of her hair. “His name is Rhodey. He’s my best friend. He’s my _person_.”

Proxima tilts her head. “Person?” she questions.

It feels strange to have this conversation with her, and not Gamora and Nebula, who she likes twice as much, who she enjoys twice as hard.

Toni flashes her a half-smile. “You have people that you’re blood-related to, you know, the ones that DNA and genetics bind you too. I have never… been crazy about those who I’m blood-related to, except for my mother. I loved my mother a lot. Rhodey is my family, he’s the one that I hold onto every day. So, he’s my person.”

Proxima frowns and finally nods.

“He was the first one to see, back when I was a teenager. He saw Ty say terrible things to me, things that hurt me, things that made me cry when I didn’t think anyone could see me crying. He saw Ty get aggressive with me, shake me by my shoulders in a fight, grab my hair, leave marks that are more bruises and welts than hickeys or love bites. He saw Ty shove me against the wall. He saw me sore, black and blue after a date night, and he aw me confused, because I didn’t know where the bruises are coming from. He saw, on one memorable occasion and the _last_ occasion, Ty hit me, finally, in full view of _someone else_ , being him, right across the face, by the way; he belted me right across the face, his ring cut my cheek and lip open, and I hit the floor and I was cowering because I thought he was going to hit me again, and then, I looked up.”

Proxima shifts, her eyes widening a bit, like she’s interested in where the story’s going.

“And Rhodey was standing there, in between me and Ty, and then, Rhodey punched him, like really fucking punched him, smashed his face in. Ty was bleeding, and then, Rhodey shoved him against the wall, hand around his throat, and tells him, _if you touch her again, if you come near her again, I’m going to kill you, I’m not saying that the same way people say I’m going to kill you, I mean, if you come anywhere near her again, I’m going to bash your skull in, again and again, until there’s nothing left of your fucking face._ ”

“He loved you very much,” Proxima says, quietly.

“He _loves_ me very much,” Toni corrects. “And it didn’t do much for me, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean?”

Toni laughs. “Well, I went back to him, didn’t I?”

Proxima stares at her as if she’s just proven her stupidity. “Why would you go back to him?”

“Why are you still with Glaive?” Toni flings back.

Proxima quietens.

“I loved Ty,” Toni insists. “You say now that you don’t love Glaive, that you did your duty, but you say love Thanos. You love him, don’t you?”

Proxima looks uncertain. “He is my father,” she replies.

“There was a time when I was certain that Ty was the love of my existence,” Toni says, shrugging. “He used to look at me like I was the most beautiful person in the world, like I put the sun and the stars and the moon in the sky every night. That’s addictive for someone whose father looks at them and only sees someone less, unworthy, and whose mother loves the bottle a little too much to be a proper mother to them. So, I went back. It was easy, I fell into easy habits. It was like coming home. And then,” she exhales, like her lungs are giving out. “Oh, and then, there was a… bad thing.”

“A bad thing?”

Toni takes a slow, steadying breath. “Oh, yeah, a really bad thing.”

She remembers it with stunning, aching technicolour.

“He got drunk, _we_ got drunk, and before I knew it, he was screaming at me and raging at me, and saying all of these things, calling me every name, a bitch, a whore, a cunt, he was telling me that I was worthless and stupid and lucky that someone like him loved me the way he did, and that no one could ever love me, I wasn’t meant to be loved, that I wasn’t special, that I was just more of the same, a prissy, stuck-up bitch who didn’t know her place, and that wasn’t my Ty. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t him, wasn’t the boy I loved.” She looks away, just for a moment. “And usually, usually, I would have taken it, you know, curled in on myself like a wounded animal, because I was scared, because I didn’t want him to leave me, because I… I was a sad girl, and he knew that. But in that moment, I got angry.”

Proxima’s eyes glint with interest.

She likes that, she likes when people get angry, she likes it when _women_ get angry.

“I got so angry, I was screaming back at him, and saying all sorts of things myself, like he was an abusive dick, that he only hit me because he knew that I was better than him, that I would always be better than him, that I was worth more, that I was loved me, that _he_ was sad, and that, yes, I was screwing around on him, because he already believed the worst of me and he was never going to believe the truth. Fuck him, he used to put his hands on me and call it love, he can deal with the humiliation of his girlfriend fucking someone else. And then, he lost it.”

She still remembers it, with glaring technicolour, as Ty hits her first, backhands her across the face, the ring she’d given him cutting a clean, wet line across her cheek. Then, he’d reached down, gripped her by the hair, wound it around her wrist and pulled her to her feet, as she’d beaten at his hands, struggled, and threw her up against the mirror, hands around his throat, slamming her back again and again, until the mirror shattered, and she felt something wet against her hair, her vision going dull, her hearing going muted.

She’d kicked and sobbed and clawed with her teeth and nails, fought him with everything that she had, and it hadn’t been enough, because he just wouldn’t let her go. His face had loomed into view then, shining and contorted with such rage and bile and bitter, seething hate, like she was the worst, most awful thing in his life, like she’d carved his parents up like a Thanksgiving turkey and then pissed on their corpses, and she’d realised, _oh, I love him, and he wants me dead, he wants me dead._

That had been the worst.

She’d choked and gurgled and spit, and finally, he let her go, hands shaking.

Her eyes had been almost swollen shut, bruised, dark and purpling, but she remembers that, she remembers the panic clawing in his face, the way his hands shook, and his weight leaving her body.

She was bleeding, she knew that, she remembered that, the red that slipped from her body, and she remembers sobbing, seeing nothing, and then, her eyes closed.

“He hurt me a lot,” she says, quietly. “It was very bad. I lost consciousness. I woke up, and I was in a hospital bed, and they were wheeling me into surgery. Rhodey was there. Rhodey was there, holding onto the bed, as they wheeled me in. There were tears in his eyes, he was so afraid. He told me later than he was the one who found me.” She swallows. “He thought I was dead. I was still awake; they didn’t put me down under. I couldn’t hear anything, though. That took weeks to come back.”

That was the worst, opening her eyes, waking up in pain, bloody and bruised, eyes stinging from the lamp mounted to the ceiling, and faces looming into view, Rhodey’s handsome face, saying words that Tony can’t hear. They’d turned her onto her side, and the pain had flared so hot, burned so bright, that she’d screamed, and Rhodey had cried harder, hand in her hair, smoothing it back, trying to keep her warm and safe.

“And then, they gave me a chest tube. It, uh, it drains blood, fluid, air from your lungs and your heart and oesophagus. It goes between your ribs and into the space between the inner lining and the outer lining of your chest cavity,” she explains to Proxima, who looks almost disgusted, as she drags a line with the edge of her nail over her synthetic torso where the chest tube had gone, the nail scraping against the metal.

“God, that felt like shit,” she muses. “I passed out from the pain and when I woke up, I couldn’t hear, my jaw was wired shut, and my whole body was black and blue, like someone had put me through a fucking meat grinder. Jarvis was sitting at my bedside-”

“Jarvis?” Proxima queries.

“Our butler, my friend, my heart,” Toni replies, simply. “He was the first and best person to love me in this world. He came as soon as Rhodey told him, sat with me the whole time, held my hand. And when I woke up, I started crying, because my body hurt and my heart hurt, and Rhodey climbed into the bed with me and held me until I stopped crying. And then, Jarvis held my hand and told me that Ty is never going to touch me again. They are my people, Rhodey and Jarvis. Jarvis is dead now, but Rhodey’s still alive. He’s the one that I’d call if I killed someone and I need to hide the body-”

“Why would you need to hide the body?” Proxima asks, confused.

“Because murder is illegal where I come from, keep up, Nightmare Smurf,” Toni says, frustrated. “Rhodey makes me brave. He knows me, all the dark, dirty parts of me that no one should know about, he knows, and he loves me for it and not just in spite of it.” She looks away. “So, you see, I understand. I understand why loving someone can ruin you entirely. I’ve been there, I clawed my way out and away. You haven’t managed to do that. It’s okay, it’s not a fault of yours. It’s a fault of the people around you.” She smiles, feline and contented.

“I am not like you,” Proxima says, flustered and hurt and uncertain, like a child who doesn’t know what to say, who doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“You are,” Toni shakes her head. “You just need a little bit more help. I had Rhodey, I had Jarvis, there were other people in my life who loved me and wanted me safe and happy and would have killed the monsters in my life so I didn’t have to. You don’t have that in your life. If Thanos was a good father, if he was deserving of the love and loyalty you show him on a daily basis, he never would have asked or demanded that you marry Glaive, and even if he did, he would’ve struck Glaive dead even before he laid a hand on you. That’s what love is. I would do it for any of the people I love in my life,” she says, fiercely. “If any of them were hurt, were trapped in a nightmare, I would do it for them, I would kill all the monsters for them, I would be their knight, because I love them. You needed someone like that, and the people who should’ve been your knights, or the _person_ , because I’m not hedging, I’m not manipulating you, I’m saying what I think straight to your face, didn’t do that, he _wasn’t_ your knight.”

Proxima recoils from those words.

She ghosts a hand over her painted cheek. “If you want me to, I’d like to show you what it means to be touched with kindness, not just lust. I’d like to show you what you’ve been missing?”

“You hate me,” Proxima points out, with a guilty, cracked quality to her voice. “I hate you.”

Toni shrugs. “I had originally thought this was going to be hate sex, but I’m happy for it to morph into gratitude sex.”

“Oh,” Proxima says, lamely.

Toni curls a hand around the nape of Proxima’s neck and kisses her, slow and soft, her nose nudging against Proxima’s. She feels the breath whoosh out of Proxima’s chest, as she pushes further, gripping her shoulders, bearing her down to the ground.

“Do your horns come off?” she asks, bluntly, pulling away momentarily.

Proxima nods. “It is a headdress,” she explains and lifts the horns off, revealing a head of dark hair, black as stone, just like hers, and skin grey like a corpse, with the blue war paint that stretches across her eyes, from temple to temple. “See,” she offers a strained, uncertain smile.

“Very nice,” she says, approvingly, and curls over her.

Toni’s hand threads through Proxima’s hair, looping the strands around the width of her palm, and she kisses her again, steady and purposeful, mouth moving over hers with skill, with careful measure. A hand moves from her neck, hovering over where Proxima’s pulse throbs fast and wild, down to her shoulders, the slim, curve, and her deft little fingers find the zipper and catch on her armour, pulling it down swiftly.

“You are sure about this?” she checks in.

Proxima lifts her chin, almost defiantly, as if she’s imagining Thanos there, lurking in the room (pervert that he is), watching her do this, watching her disobey him, and she’s, in effect, saying _fuck you, fuck off, I can do as I please_.

“Yes,” she replies.

Toni grins, fleetingly, peeling away the armour like bark on a tree. Proxima is tall, much bigger than she is, lithe, made strong like the others, with small, high, firm breasts, nipples black as her hair, a waist that tapers it, a slight curve to her hips and long, pale legs, with a thatch of dark, curly hair between her thighs.

She’s tall, like an Amazon, and for some reason, Toni finds herself growing wet.

Toni sits back on her knees and strips herself off her clothes, the tunic that she wears and the leggings underneath, revealing the scaled metal that is her upper body, a slight swell to the prosthetic chest where her breasts used to be and long, brown legs, the matching dark hair between her thighs.

“I have not had consensual sex since Thanos cut off my entire upper body,” she says. “Just so you know.”

Proxima shrugs. “According to you, I have never had consensual sex,” she sneers.

“What a sad world this is,” Toni mutters under her breath.

She leans down and kisses her again, smoothing a hand from her neck over the sweep of her collarbone and shoulder, down to her sternum, between the curve of her breasts. She cups one, thumbing her nipple, and Proxima gasps, arching into the touch.

“Like that?” Toni asks, waggling her eyebrows.

Proxima settles back against the ground, her eyes shining. “It was… effective,” she hedges.

Toni leans down and catches a nipple between her teeth and tugs. Proxima shouts, a hurt little noise escaping her, and then, she settles again. Toni hushes her and moves to the other nipple, laving it with her tongue, while her fingers take care of the rest. She nuzzles, briefly, at Proxima’s breastbone, smells clean, singed skin, like metal, and moves down her body, hands easing over her ribs.

“Can I touch between your legs?” she murmurs against the slope of her hip.

Proxima swallows, thickly. “Yes, yes, you may,” she clears her throat.

Toni grins and splays open Proxima’s legs. She’s grey there, the sliver of skin under her hipbone, the creases of her thighs, but her cunt is pink on the inside. There’s a little knot of flesh that Toni guesses is her clit, and when she brushes her thumb over it, Proxima’s muscles seizes up, feet jerking outwards.

Toni presses her mouth to her belly, and throws a leg over her shoulder, so she can land her mouth on Proxima’s cunt.

Proxima arches, fingers scrabbling against the training ground floors for purchase and not finding anyway.

“Here,” she says, gently. “You can put your hands in my hair.”

Her fingers curl around Proxima’s wrist, not quite clamping down tight enough to give the warrior woman pause, fear, so that she can lean into her urge to fight and claw, and pulls that hand towards her hair, letting Proxima’s long, pale fingers knot in the dark strands.

“Just, uh, you know, don’t pull it off my head,” she teases.

Proxima’s face floods with colour. “I will not do that,” she reassures.

Toni bites down on her hipbone, making Proxima giggle, a childish noise pealing through the air, and suddenly, Proxima is covering her mouth with the palm of her hand, eyes wide and haunted.

Toni lifts an eyebrow, curiously. “You can make whatever noise you want to make. No holds barred here,” she promises.

“I am not a child,” Proxima huffs.

“You’re not,” Toni agrees. “But you’ve got next to no experience where sex is concerned-”

“I am no-”

“Your experiences with Glaive do not count,” Toni says, voice cutting through the air.

“That is unfair,” Proxima says, her voice low and rushed.

“That’s your right.” Toni shrugs. “But I reserve the right to disagree, vehemently and wholeheartedly.”

Proxima opens her mouth like she’s about to argue – any protests she might have made immediately fades when Toni gives her exposed sex a smack with her open palm.

“Why did you,” Proxima almost shouts. “Why did you _hit_ me… _there_?”

“You liked it, you got wet,” Toni points out, delighted. “Sex is for exploring things, Proxima. It’s for finding out the things you like, the things you want more of. I’m guessing no one’s done that to you before?”

“Of course not,” Proxima huffs.

“Did you like it?”

Proxima grits her teeth. “Well, yes,” she admits, grudgingly.

“Exactly,” Toni says, sweetly.

She shoulders her thighs apart and puts her tongue on her again. Proxima’s hips pitch against her mouth, and she licks into her, determined to draw a noise from her, a yelp, a scream, a shout, something loud and full of satisfaction that she could notch onto her non-existent belt.

Proxima, instead, in an attempt to keep herself quiet, while Toni kisses between her legs, is banging her fist against the ground, and she bites down on the soft flesh of her thighs, hidden by all of that toned, firm muscle. She wraps her legs around Toni’s throat for leverage, not to the point of throttling her, of course, but enough to keep her steady, as Toni’s tongues trace patterns into that pink, pink flesh.

Her tongue curls inside her, and then, there’s a rough swipe over her cunt, licking her clean where she’s dripping. She tastes like human women do, Toni quickly realises and delights in, sharp, with a salt-spray bite, and then, Proxima is winding her long fingers in Toni’s hair, pulling sharply against the scalp, not hard enough to tear the strands from her head, but she starts grinding desperately against Toni’s face, thighs clamped around her head.

She comes like that, muscles seizing up like she’s about to go into a fit. The tendons in her body go taut against the skin, and her fingers curl and uncurl around nothing, as if she wants to claw her own face off.

Proxima settles and lifts her head, lifting an eyebrow.

“So, that-”

“-is an orgasm,” Toni says, feline and contented, leaning back on her knees.

She sweeps her thumb over her lower lip and closes her mouth around it, tasting Proxima’s slick, and her smile grows teeth when Proxima shuffles, restlessly, her legs widening of their own accord.

“That was not what I was expecting,” she says, stiffly.

Toni shrugs. “I’m not boasting when I say this, but I am very good at sex. It’s very likely that you won’t be able to replicate that sensation with anyone else but me.”

Proxima’s mouth turns up at the corners, just the slightest. “That’s not boasting at all,” she says, dryly.

“Call it confidence,” Toni says, simply. “What most people mistake as arrogance from me, is just _fact_ , cold, even _fact_. That’s true for sex, for engineering, for science, for technology, for finances, for business, for everything that I claim to be good at in my life.”

Proxima huffs out a laugh.

Toni tilts her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before,” she comments.

Proxima turns her head, her expression morphing into something confusing, pained. “My life does not exactly give rise to much laughing,” she points out.

Toni sighs and stretches out like a cat beside Proxima, twisting onto her side so that she can face Proxima. “Totally fair,” she murmurs.

“You do not like me,” Proxima says, uncertainly. “Why would you… why would you do this for me?”

Toni raises an eyebrow. “You mean have sex with you? Give you an orgasm?”

Proxima nods, uncertainly.

“One, you look like you desperately needed one,” she says, dryly. “Two…” she hesitates. “Look, I won’t deny that this was supposed to be angry sex. You pissed me off, and I wanted to get back at you, and I thought sex was the way to get back at you. And then, you told me about you and Glaive-”

Proxima swells up like an apoplectic frog. “If this was pity,” she begins with a dangerous edge to her voice.

“It wasn’t pity,” Toni reassures. “I don’t pity people with sex. That’s just… yucky. No, this was a genuine desire to make you feel something that you have most likely never felt before. Orgasms are lovely; they’re a natural painkiller; you deserve better than that. So, I had sex with you. Call it an act of mercy.”

Proxima huffs out a laugh. “An act of mercy,” she says, wrapping her tongue around the words.

“You deserve better, Proxima,” Toni says, gently.

“I deserve better?” Proxima’s smile is bitter and twisted. “You don’t even like me, Stark. Why would you think I deserved better?”

“Like has nothing to do with it; it’s called common decency,” Toni points out. “I don’t have to like you, Proxima. I just need to have sympathy for your situation because I’ve been there before.”

Proxima stares at her for a while, in that sort of melancholic, interminable way that makes Toni’s skin crawl quietly.

“I can see it now.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow.

Proxima smiles a little, just a little, a small, sad smile showing a hint of teeth. “I can see why Nebula and Gamora like you so much; I can see why they would disobey my father for you; you are…” Proxima looks down at her feet. “You’re compelling, Stark. You’re very compelling.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I return the favour?” Proxima asks, gesturing to Toni’s body.

Toni raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t do anything expecting something in return.”

Proxima shrugs. “That doesn’t mean I can’t return the favour,” she points out.

Toni sighs. “Fine, if that’s what you want,” she says, loftily.

Proxima grins, fleetingly, baring the razor line of her teeth, and then she crawls on top of Toni, kissing her, sliding her tongue in Toni’s mouth, and her fingers, deft and quick, start to strip her from her armour.

She doesn’t feel anything; she realises that quickly.

At least, from the waist up, she doesn’t feel anything. There are swells there, to the metal, in the place of breasts, her breasts.

She had nice breasts, she remembers, dark with darker nipples, a nice, full swell to the flesh; she had never had any complaints with them; every one of her partners had loved them, paid extra attention to them.

She misses them now.

She misses her flat belly, her navel, she misses her collarbone, like it was made from bird bones – she had never missed anything before, but she’d be glad for anything that wasn’t black, that wasn’t made out of scaled metal.

Revulsion crawls under her skin, hot and swollen and itching, and she has the sudden urge to push Proxima’s hands off her.

Proxima clearly reads something in her gaze, because she pulls away, her sharp features cast in concern.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, uncertainly.

“I haven’t…”

She looks down at her bare top half, all black, just metal – she’s even more machine than she already was.

“I haven’t had sex since before,” she says, lamely.

Proxima frowns. “You and my father-”

“You probably should stop talking,” Toni cuts her off, carefully, not particularly cruel, but not kind either. “What your father and I do in his rooms is not sex, is not love; it’s violence, it’s rape, it’s the same sort of thing that happens between you and Glaive. And he never touches me… not like that, not really. There’s no feeling.”

There is something violent and painful in her face, the child that doesn’t want to believe her father is an awful person, a rapist, an abusive piece of shit.

Toni doesn’t have enough empathy for that child, as terrible as it sounds.

“There’s no feeling?” Proxima questions instead, clearing her throat.

“No,” Toni says, shortly, reaching for Proxima’s hand, curling the fingers into a fist and rapping it harshly against her abdomen. “See.” Her mouth twists. “No feeling.”

“But how-”

Toni lifts an eyebrow, half-amused. “I still have a cunt, you know,” she points out.

Proxima’s eyes drag south, and then, she flushes, her gaze snapping back up again.

“So, if I wanted to return the favour-”

“I’d concentrate down there, if I were you,” Toni says, slowly.

“Oh,” Proxima says, lamely. She straightens her shoulders, as if taking the challenge. “Well, I would still like to return the favour?”

Toni shrugs. “Just stay away from my chest, and you’ve got a deal.”

Proxima shoves her down, and she yelps, hitting the ground hard. It doesn’t particularly hurt, what with her new enhancements, and she’s more intrigued by the way Proxima crawls on top of her like, perching in her lap like a cat, with legs on either side of her.

Toni just waits.

Proxima slithers down, so she can peel the leather off her legs, along with the cotton that passes off as underwear, leaving her naked to her gaze.

“You have very nice legs,” Proxima comments.

Toni laughs, the colour high in her cheeks. “Thanks.”

Proxima’s fingers curl around her ankle, lifting it up so that she can hook it over her shoulder, and open Toni up to her. She kisses the inside of Toni’s knee, her mouth soft and warm, and it makes goosebumps pimple across the skin of her lower half, as she sucks in a breath, her eyes going half-lidded.

Her hand drags from Toni’s ankle to wrap firmly around the fleshy part of her thigh, squeezing, before moving downward, to the crease of warm, dark skin, darker than the rest of her body, between her thigh and cunt, so that she can scrape her nails over Toni’s dark, curling pubic hair.

“Is this normal for your species?” Proxima asks, curiously.

Toni lifts her head and stares down at her over the rise and fall of her body. “What are you talking about?”

“The hair,” Proxima comments.

Toni grins. “It’s called pubic hair. Girls and boys grow them at puberty, in their teenage years.”

“And it’s customary to let it grow,” Proxima wonders out loud.

Toni laughs. “There are various schools of thought on that.” She lifts herself onto her elbows, so she can see Proxima a little better. “A lot of woman shave now, completely bare, like you are. Some of them trim, until it’s neat, like me. Some of them just leave it natural. Human pornography has glorified a shaved cunt, and so, a lot of women wax completely, so it will be pleasing to the men they have sex with.”

Proxima’s face scrunches up. “That seems foolish.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Really? You, who married Glaive as a child because Thanos wanted you to, are judging human women for wanting to live up to men’s expectations of them?” she says, dryly.

Proxima flushes and turns her head. “I did not mean it like that,” she says, awkwardly.

“We all do it,” Toni points out, not unkindly. “Perform for men, make ourselves look appealing to them, so they’ll want us, so they’ll love us.”

“Love is for children,” Proxima huffs.

“Love is for everyone,” Toni corrects. “People like to pretend like they’re above love, like love is just some fairy-tale they wouldn’t touch with their filthiest foot. They’re wrong, they’re making it up. Everyone wants to be loved, everyone wants someone to look at them like they paint the sun into the sky every day. Who wouldn’t?” she shrugs.


	9. ix.

Proxima eyes her carefully. “I never thought you would be an idealist.”

Toni’s lip curls up, self-deprecatingly. “Despite what most people think, I have and will always be an idealist,” she tells her. “You know, I’ve been through things that most people will never go through in their lives. An abusive relationship that lands me in the hospital for four weeks, parents dead, kidnapped by terrorists in the desert, two lethal cardiothoracic surgeries without anaesthesia or disinfectant, almost murdered thrice by my godfather, blood poisoned by the thing keeping me alive, a nuke on my back that I take through a wormhole in space that gets me kidnapped by an intergalactic, genocidal war lord, who says he’s in love with me. But despite all of that, despite everything I have ever wanted to be or pretended to be, I am an idealist. I want… I want a lot of things,” she says, wistfully. “I want a mansion on the sea, one that I can enjoy this time, without thinking of the time that my godfather pinned me to the couch, rolled up my shirt, groped my breasts a little, and took out the terribly unstable prosthetic in my chest so he could ruin the world. I want a nice, sweet chai latter with a kick of ginger-”

“Chai latte?” Proxima questions.

“A drink that people from my culture invented, and white people made into a thing,” Toni murmurs. “It’s, uh, black tea, with spices and herbs, most prominently, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and ginger and peppercorn.” She exhales. “They make it sweet in America, and I miss it, even if it’s the bastardised version. I want… I want air-conditioning. God, it’s so hot in this ship. I miss air-conditioning. I want my music, my loud, loud rock music that hurts my ears but makes me feel alive when I’m jumping around. I want… I want a husband or a wife or a partner, I guess. I have this sudden, desperate urge to wake up next to someone every morning, even if I don’t sleep according to normal, human schedules and I’m incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing myself so much that I can actually sleep beside a person and not chafe. I’ve only ever done that with Rhodey.”

“Maybe you should marry him,” Proxima teases, as if it’s an option, as if they both don’t know that there is no marriage in Toni’s future, as if they both don’t know that Thanos is never letting her leave. “Have that mansion on the sea with him.”

_Yes, that’s what I want. Rhodey, and the mansion, and the chai, and the air-conditioning. I want that._

Toni just smiles, a false, thin-lipped smile. “Maybe I should,” she agrees, lightly.

Proxima grips her knee. “Would you like for me to get on with it?” she asks, dryly.

Toni shrugs. “If that’s what you want, I’m sure as hell not objecting-”

Proxima kisses the edge of her thigh, where dark skin becomes pink, pink flesh, the colour of ripe strawberries and the feel of crumpled silk. She runs her tongue over that flesh, and Toni sucks in a deep breath, trapping the air in her lungs. When she’s done tracing the edge of her cunt with her tongue, she moves away before kissing her clit.

Toni’s moaning aloud now, never been one to shy away from sex noises, and her hands are in Proxima’s thick, dark hair, knuckles tight against her scalp and tugging, saying _yes_ and _there_ and _more_ , and Proxima is eager enough to oblige. She licks at her clit once, then twice, swirling her tongue, before mouthing at where she opens up just underneath that knot of nerves.

Toni clenches hard, throbbing, when she feels the blunt pressure of one of Proxima’s long, thin fingers at the opening of her cunt. She raises her head, the sweat pooling at the nape of her neck.

“You learn quickly,” she comments.

Proxima gives her a smile, one that cuts like a knife. “I had a good teacher.”

Her finger traces Toni’s clit, coming away wet, and it slides it without effort, Toni’s insides grasping at Proxima’s finger, throbbing. She lowers her head again and licks the stripe of her skin between the lip of her cunt and the crease of her thigh, where her skin is just the shade darker than her dusky colouring, nuzzling into the dark hair at her groin.

“Fuck,” Toni gasps, banging a fist against the ground.

Proxima pushes two fingers inside her and she bites at her hip, the fleshy part, just like Toni had done to her. Toni laces her hands in Proxima’s hair and pushes her there, legs tangling around her throat, almost strangling her.

She waits, she waits for Proxima to tap out, but all that she feels is the groan that rushes through her body and bones, and Proxima grasping her like she’d tear her skin open to climb inside Toni’s skeleton if she could.

She bends the fingers she has inside of Toni, and Toni yelps, hands going to Proxima’s shoulders, a neat little stretch that should make her back ache, but it looks like the fake torso she has is good for at least one thing in this world, because she can perform all of these seamless, bendy moves like she’s still that hot, eighteen year old co-ed that takes all the hot jocks to bed, uses them and throws them out on their sexist pig ass when she’s done.

Her nails dig into Proxima’s skin, and Proxima moves her fingers out of her, before pushing them back in with a wet squelch, the sound of which makes goosebumps rise and prickle over whatever skin she has left.

Toni’s orgasm breaks just like that, her cunt clenching around her fingers over and over again, and she arches her back, the blood pounding in her ears. She’s suspended just like that, in that pleasant stretch of her body, half-arched, half-kicking out like a dog, and then, she’s releasing, slumping back against the ground, and her legs unwinding from Proxima’s throat, giving her the chance to finally breathe.

Proxima shuffles closer, so she can stretch out and lie down beside Toni on the cold, hard ground of the training room.

“How was it?” she asks, almost uncertainly, if she puffs out her chest in mock-confidence.

“Very nice,” Toni says, immediately, offering her a slow, feline curve of her lips that seems fake.

She turns her eyes up to the ceiling and somehow, even with sweat cooling on her skin, her cunt still throbbing, sensitive, she still feels cold.

* * *

“What, are we the sort of couple that goes to tourist traps now?” Toni asks, snidely, folding her arms over her chest.

Thanos grins down at her with all of his teeth. “You admit what we are, then?” he asks, satisfied.

 _I would rather cut out my red, bleeding, beating heart and throw it at your stupid, fucking head_ , she thinks.

Instead, she casts down those long eyelashes of hers. “Is that what you want?” she sighs, smoothing a thin, brown hand over the bulk of his arm. “Do you want me to acknowledge what you mean to me? Do you really want me to do that? Do you really think you’ll like what I say?”

Satisfaction swells deep in her chest, like old gold, when his face sours like curdled milk.

“Do you want to go back to Sanctuary?” he asks, pointedly, his voice sharp. “To the tender embrace of my children?”

“Why, are you scared they’re more loyal to me than they are to you?” Toni retorts.

Thanos offers her a half-smile. He lays his giant, purple paw on the crown of her head and smooths back her hair.

“You think I’ve forgotten what happened in that training room, my love?” he asks, smile laced with pity. “You think I have forgotten your attempts to turn my wayward daughters to your side. I’ll admit, I am quite proud of how quickly they rose to your defence. Do they think something ill between us, I wonder? What stories have you been telling them?”

“Nothing you haven’t done to me in front of them, yourself,” she reminds him.

“You threw yourself at me like a hysterical fool.” Thanos’ mouth twists in disdain. “Was I supposed to take that lightly?”

“You kept my organs,” she says, baring the razor line of her teeth. “Do you even realise how fucked up that is?”

“Would you like to have this conversation now?” Thanos asks, as if he is the long-suffering one, as if she is the unreasonable one.

“Yeah, you know what, _let’s_ ,” she says, finally. “You want to have children with me?”

Thanos peers down at her, his hands tightening briefly around the pod’s controls, built for big, meaty fists.

“The universe will be in turmoil once I am done with the stones,” he explains, haltingly. “It will need someone to rule over it, to show them a way into the future. You and I will show them that way, and we will need someone to come after us, won’t we? Who better than a child of our blood?”

“Don’t forget, to continue your work,” she says, sourly. “Because your plan has an exceeding amount of flaws, and the universe, I can assure you, will quickly return to the state you condemn it for, even after you’ve, you know, killed half the population in the entire fucking universe.”

“If that is what must happen, then, yes,” Thanos replies, coldly. “Our child will do what I will and would, to save this universe. I have explained my reasoning, time and time again, and I grow weary of having to do it yet again.”

“I’m not interested, anyway,” she says, her mouth a thin, tense line. “I’ve heard it all, and I still think it’s shit.”

“Watch yourself,” Thanos warns, immediately, fists tightening.

Toni hates herself for how fear slithers against her lungs, heavy and hot.

“What if I don’t want children?” she asks, carefully.

Thanos turns to her, eyebrows drawn, tilting his head. “Why would you not want children?” he asks, confused.

Toni narrows her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she says, disgusted. “You’re not one of those dickbags, who thinks that just because I have a cunt and I once had a uterus, I should have some biological and emotional imperative to breed, do you?”

Thanos chuckles, and she hates that too – she hates how he oscillates from fond amusement to thin fury, how she has to balance herself on a tightrope, waiting for him to either belt her across the face or kiss her gently like she’s the world to him and never knowing which it will be.

She hates him and his fickle heart.

“No, my daughters are enough of a proof of the fallacy of that imperative, I believe,” Thanos muses. “I do not believe in such things. I have no need to; what I speak of has nothing to do with biology or emotion. I speak of a bloodline, a dynasty of your own, of _our_ own. A child that you may love is but a benefit, but there must be one to come after. I had thought it would be Gamora, but…” he sighs. “Gamora is my daughter and I love her greatly-”

 _That’s a lie_.

“But lately I fear she has not the strength it requires to do what must be done. She does not share your… hunger, your rage, as much as I have tried to teach it to her,” Thanos explains, weary lines carved into his face, as if he were just a long-suffering father with a daughter who stayed out too late, wore miniskirts, came home with rings through her nose and bellybutton and smelled like cheap beer and regret. “A child that shares our blood will have my goodness, my resolve and your hunger and your vision. What else could I want? What else could _you_ want? A child, a bloodline, a dynasty of your own, surely, you would not turn away such a gift.”

“I don’t want children,” Toni says, coldly. “I never have. Otherwise, I would’ve had plenty by now. I’m forty-four. I was reaching menopause long before I got here. In fact, you’re lucky you got to me when you did. I don’t _want_ children.”

_I don’t want your children._

“You have very little choice in the matter,” Thanos reminds her, voice unbearably soft.

“So, you’ve made very clear,” Toni mutters under her breath. “I’m not going to explain to you the sin of reproductive coercion, because I have a feeling it’s just going to go through one ear and out the other, but I _am_ curious. How does it work?” she asks, her skin crawling in a quiet sort of way.

“I have your reproductive organs kept in safe place,” Thanos says, as if he’s discussing the weather and hadn’t harvested her organs for some sick alien breeding project. “I would warn you against plying the location from any of my children; they do not know where they are.”

“Nebula said, she said you’d done it to her parts too,” Toni says, feeling a wretched sort of dryness in her throat at the words.

“I did,” Thanos agrees without much fight.

“Why? If you thought her, me, us, so imperfect? I mean, that’s why you did it, right?” Toni pushes.

Thanos snorts, an ungainly gesture from him, where she’d only seen him formal with so much dignity and pride. “Nebula was weak, when I first brought her home,” he says.

 _You make it sound like you adopted a kid from an orphanage with a contract and a social worker overseeing everything, you slaughtered her family and stole her from their corpses_ , she thinks. _Just like you committed genocide on Gamora’s planet and she was your spoil of war, just like you plucked me out of the stars after I destroyed your army and you kept me in conjugal slavery._

“I trained her to fight, and I pit her against Gamora, and she lost every time,” Thanos says, long-sufferingly, as if Nebula’s ‘weakness’ was the bane of his existence. “And so, I thought, perhaps the flesh was weak. Luphomoids are weak beings, you see. It did not take much to end their lives. So, I thought to make Nebula strong, with use of cybernetics. Even after I fixed her, after I took her eye and her hand and her hip, parts of her brain, she still _lost_.”

His voice is thick with disgust, and Toni’s stomach instantly curdles – she _likes_ Nebula, Nebula is her _friend_ , and Thanos speaks of her like she’s nothing more than trash to him, a wasted investment, and Toni, well, Toni has the sudden urge to belt him across the face for that alone.

She’s never be able to stand an insult to one of her _people_.

Ty had called Rhodey _ghetto trash_ once and Toni had threatened to bash his skull in with her hammer – she should’ve, in hindsight, for all the times he’d never held back, cracked his hand across her face, kicked her, pulled her by the hair like a leash, held her a little too tight until she winced, dug his nails in until she tried to pull away, screamed at her and called her _slut_ , an _easy, loose curry whore_ , fucked her a little too hard even when she said no, when she told him to stop.

But she’d loved him a little too much, and she had never been good at knowing the things bad for her.

She knows Thanos is bad for her, though; she knows Nebula is her friend, one of her _people_ , like Jarvis, like Ana, Rhodey, like Pepper, like Sharon and Happy and Peggy and Bruce and Gamora.

So, it’s easy for her to imagine how she’s going to kill him when all of this is done, when she’s done with stupid, miserable game.

“I thought it was her flesh,” he muses. “But it was just her. I kept her parts, because I could never be sure. She was always imperfect, and she is still imperfect. But I thought, perhaps her parts could be made useful for some purpose.”

“And did you figure out such a purpose?” Toni asks, snidely, her hands shaking against her thighs.

“Not yet,” Thanos sighs. “But I-”

“She’s not imperfect,” Toni blurts out, cutting him off. “Nebula, she’s not… she’s not imperfect,” she repeats, her shoulders straightening, fixing him with a fierce look. “Nebula’s fine the way she is.”

Thanos softens and he gives her a kind, milksop look, touching her hair with a big, fat, purple hand, thumb smoothing her brow. “It gladdens me that you love me daughters so,” he muses. “It gladdens me that they are loyal to you as well, but you are new to this, my love, new to our family. You do not know my daughters as I do. Nebula is… she is many things, but I fear she is not the daughter that I had thought I would have when I first took her for my own.”

“And that’s her fault?” Toni says, dryly.

Thanos stares at her for a moment like she’s an idiot. “Of course; whose else would it be?” he asks, slowly.

“Sorry, I forgot,” she says, sarcastically, shaking her head.

“That’s quite alright,” Thanos says, kindly. “But you are far too gentle with my daughters, especially Nebula. She is already weak; you make her weaker.”

Toni scowls. “She’s fine the way she is,” she insists.

“No,” Thanos sighs. “She is not. But going back to your original question, yes, I kept her parts as well, more of my own interests now that the years go by than for any particular functional use. Yours, on the other hand, yours will be put to great use.”

Oh, right. She almost forgot.

Almost.

“Human bodies are no better than meat; humans themselves are no greater than animals, in truth.” Thanos’ face contorts with disgust. “I will admit, when the stones first showed me you, I gaped in disbelief. A human mate, for me, a human mother, protector, saviour for this universe. I thought you were too weak, too fragile, too soft to do what needs to be done.”

Toni snorts and thinks, _shit, I’m not supposed to be agreeing with him._

“I’m tender,” she says, instead, her voice thin as a blade that cuts neatly. “But I was never soft.”

Thanos gives her a soft, maudlin look that for a brief moment, she imagines on Jarvis’ first, human Jarvis, the first Jarvis, and her stomach turns even if there’s nothing there, curdling like sour milk, her skin crawling – no, that was wrong, that was evil and cruel and awful; Jarvis was good and kind and decent and worth a thousand of everyone Toni has ever known, except for maybe Rhodey; Toni _loved_ Jarvis, loved him like she was unable to love even her own parents; Jarvis would’ve killed Thanos for all the ways that he hurt Toni, put his hands on her, lied to her, twisted her for his own means.

“I know,” Thanos says, firmly.

A part of her, a stupid part, preens at his words, and she wonders, _when did I start looking for his approval?_

“The stones showed me your life. At first, I did not understand why. I thought I could not be fated for this woman who knew nothing of the world past her frail little planet, whose flesh could not sustain the might of the universe, whose body would tear easily should I lie with her as mates, who was intelligent when compared to others of her race, but what was that intelligence in the world I lived in? I thought seeing your life was an indignity that I must suffer, so I witnessed it all. I saw your father-”

Toni’s fists clench and unclench atop her lap.

“He was a cold, bitter man who thought himself punished for having you as a child, who could never accept that you were better than him, who made you suffer under his tyrannical hand for daring to think yourself better than him. You were _always_ better than him.” Thanos shakes his head. “Your mother was no better-”

“Watch it,” she warns.

“She loved you very much,” Thanos continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. “But she was weak in the face of your father’s resentment, and she soon withered, as if she had never been there, as if she hadn’t pushed you out of her. She slept more than she walked, and drink became her comfort more than you ever could. She was a weak woman.”

 _No, she wasn’t_ , Toni thinks, something frightful and black curling in her chest. _No, she wasn’t. My mother was strong, she was kind, she was a hundred times the person my father was, she was a hundred times the person anyone was. Don’t talk about her. You don’t have the right to talk about her._

“There was your servant, Edwin Jarvis-”

“He wasn’t,” Toni corrects, her voice sharp like flinders.

Thanos looks at her, sensing her tone, the uncompromising sense of it.

“He wasn’t my servant. He was…” she trails off, unsure of how to explain.

How does one explain what Edwin Jarvis was to her?

“He loved me,” she says, instead. “He loved me more than my parents did, and I shouldn’t have meant nothing to him, not more than a salary at least. He loved me. Until I met Rhodey, he was the only one he really loved me. If it wasn’t for him, I might never have-” she sighs. “I might never have survived my childhood. Don’t… don’t talk about him like that. He wasn’t my servant. He was my friend, my family. I loved him. I _love_ him still. Don’t talk about him like that.”

There’s a wretched sort of dryness in her throat, born of grief.

“Very well,” Thanos replies, his body still angled towards her, as if he knows this is a line he must tread very cautiously. “I saw him raise you, love you as he might have his own child. He was your north star in the night that was your life. You loved him, and he loved you, and he did his best by you, tried to raise you as wholesome as he could.”

“He did,” Toni agrees almost instantaneously, her voice coming out harsh.

“He did his best to do away with the damage your parents left you with. He wanted you to know that you were so loved by him at least, even if you were not loved in that way by the people who brought and bore you into this world.”

 _He used to tell me, you were always such a happy baby, Miss Antonia, I always want you to be that way_ , she thinks, and something kicks a little in her chest, which shouldn’t be possible because there’s nothing in there anymore – she’s all hollow cavity now where her heart and her lungs used to be, a husk where was a human once.

“But he died,” Thanos says, almost morosely, almost like he’s grieving on her behalf. “He was quite young, in the grand scheme of things. He should not have been torn from you that easily, and at the hands of some peasant looking for means to pay for narcotics. He died like a dog in the street, and he took a part of you with him, did he not? All your softness, your weakness, your meekness, it died with him, buried into the fresh, damp earth, and you wanted to crawl into the earth with him and never rise again.”

“Stop it,” she says, fists clenching.

“That, in itself, the desperation, the sloth, the doubt, it made you weak. _He_ made you weak.”

“Jarvis did _not_ make me weak,” she says, her voice impossible and dangerous. “Jarvis was my family. He loved me like no one else in this world has ever loved me. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have ever survived my childhood. You can call that weak, you can call _me_ weak for it, I don’t really fucking care, but Jarvis loved me, he’d never have wanted to leave me if he’d had the option, and that’s all that’s ever mattered to me. You really want to stop _talking_ about him, right now.”

And then, surprisingly, instead of belting her across the face, Thanos falls silent.

“I would kill Tiberius Stone for you, if you asked it of me,” he says, suddenly.

Toni takes a deep, measured breath. “Why?” she asks, in a soft, strange lilt.

“He hurt you,” Thanos says, alarmed. “He laid his hands on what he had no rights to touch. Do I need more of a reason?”

“Oh, so, this is a possessive thing?” Toni angles her body towards him like a dare. “You don’t like the idea that he and I used to fuck a whole lifetime ago, so, now you want him dead?”

Thanos scoffs. “You were children,” he says. “As if that could hold any worth compared to what we are to each other.”

“In any case,” Thanos flounders. “He hurt you. He beat you like a sick dog to be put out of his misery. I need no other reason to kill him.”

“You hit me,” Toni points out, snidely. “You’ve hurt me. What is the difference between you and Ty?”

Thanos looks at her, uncertain and childlike. “Is that what you think of me?” he asks, pleading and pained. “Some boorish fool that would take my resentment, my insecurity, my own weakness out on you, who shows so much strength.”

Toni lifts her chin, her look defiant. “Are you saying you’re different?” she asks, full of scorn. “I hate to break it to you, but I’ve survived a lifetime of abuse. My father, my godfather, my ex-boyfriend, men that I’ve slept with who were a little rough. I have a… sixth sense for men like that. Rhodey, my friend, James Rhodes, I’m sure you’ve seen him in your Pensieve journey through my life, he used to say that I attract douchebags. He was right, for a long time, he was right. So, if you’re about to say to me that you’re different, that you beat me because you’re different, because there is some other grand, reason for _why_ you beat me, _I don’t get that_ , because that isn’t my life, and even if it was, I’m smart enough to recognise abuse for abuse.”

Then, she stops talking and she’s gasping for breath, because she never meant to say that, and fear rests against her belly, cloying and hot, and she waits, she waits for the rage to overtake him, for him to reach out and belt her across the face because she’s spoken out of turn, she’s mortally offended him.

She’s earned a slap at best, and a beating that makes her curl up in bed at worst, because he won’t kill her.

But he doesn’t, he doesn’t hit her, he just looks at her, all disappointed. And then, he stares down at his lap, as if he’s ashamed of himself.

“I know, I have lost my temper with you,” he says, carefully. “I have not been as mindful and respectful of you as I should have. You are so… young, so defiant and so wide-eyed. You had to learn, and there were lessons I needed to teach you. I chose to teach you those lessons with my fists instead of my words. Perhaps, it was wrong of me to do so, but know that I only did it to teach you, to make you more, to make you stronger. It was a lesson you needed to learn, and so, I taught it to you,” he says, fierce and true and sad.

“That is…”

_That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard, but if I say that to you, you might bash my skull into this spaceship’s windshield._

She offers him a brittle, strained smile. “At least you didn’t try and say it didn’t happen,” she says, instead.

Thanos covers her hand with his, as if he were capable of offering comfort, as if she were willing to take it from him.

“I am not the monster that Tiberius Stone was,” he says, firmly. “I only want what is best for you, Antonia. I only want you to be happy and safe and strong, and this is how I know to make you that. I know it seems cruel to you now, the things that I do, but I hope one day, you will see that all I have ever done was to make you the best you can possibly be.”

 _My father used to say similar things_ , Toni thinks. _Starks are made of iron, you have to work twice as hard, be twice as good to get half of what they get, Antonia, you have to be ready, the world won’t be as kind as I am. It’s all bullshit, bullshit that he used to justify being an emotionally and physically abusive dick, and it’s the same bullshit you’re using to justify beating me when I defy you and raping me because you think I’m yours._

“I’ll take your word for it,” she says, dryly.

“Nevertheless, I would kill him for you, should you ask it of me,” Thanos says, eagerly.

Toni snorts. “I thought you didn’t commit violence for violence’s sake. Haven’t you been plugging to me this entire time that you’re not an evil sociopath who likes cutting open pregnant cats to see half-alive kittens inside?”

Thanos looks alarmed. “What sort of monsters do you have on your planet?” he demands.

Toni meets his gaze, level. “All sorts,” she replies.

Thanos huffs. “Your planet in particular will benefit from our work, I think,” he mutters. “Do you miss it, your world?”

Toni tenses. “Why do you ask?”

“As I said, the stones showed me your life, the people that loved. You must miss them. James Rhodes, Virginia Potts, Margaret and Sharon Carter, Harold Hogan, those beings that stood up to my army.”

“The Avengers,” she corrects.

Thanos’ mouth twists into a smile. “They have a name. How adorable,” he teases.

“They won’t let you do what you want to do, you know,” she says, carefully. “Even if I’m here, even if I help you, I’m just one person, and I wasn’t even an Avenger.”

Thanos tilts his head towards her, his expression growing angry. “They did not consider you worthy for their legion of heroes?” he asks, offended on her behalf.

Toni rolls his eyes. “It’s not important.”

“It is,” Thanos says, the words a finality. “Why did they do you such a disservice?”

Toni shrugs, ignoring how the memory still stings. “Something along the lines of narcissistic, don’t play well with others, volatile, self-obsessed. I didn’t particularly care much,” she says, honestly. “I don’t _do_ teamwork. I don’t have faith in a lot of people. And then, they called me when Loki came to Earth. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Thanos smirks at her. “You’re welcome.”

“But I am and will always be a cog in a much bigger machine,” she says, cautiously. “Earth is onto you. They might not know who you are specifically, but they know shit is coming for them. They knew that with Loki; why do you think they were playing around with the Tesseract?”

“Did you approve?” Thanos asks, curiously.

“Of course not,” Toni scoffs. “Because I don’t think they were being smart about it. But why do you think they formed the Avengers? They wanted to be sure that when a war came, a war that couldn’t be fought by ordinary military personnel, baseline humans, there were still people to fight. I mean, we have a legit god of thunder on our team and a giant, green rage monster, not to mention master assassins and a super soldier that can bench press a tank. And I’ll bet, in the years that I’ve been gone, that line-up has only gotten bigger. They won’t lie down for you; you’d be an idiot to think they would.”

Thanos just smiles at her and touches her hand. “It matters not,” he says, honestly. “They will all fall to the infinity stones, or to my children. What have I to fear from a meagre rebellion?”

“They’re not that easy to fight,” she says, sternly, almost begging, because all she can see is Rhodey facing off against Thanos, and him turning Rhodey, her best friend, the one she loves most in the world, the man who’s the other half of her soul, into a puddle of flesh, blood and bare, cracked bone.

She bites back the bile that crawls up her throat.

“Do you expect me to fight them?” she asks, quietly.

Thanos touches her cheek with the edge of a fat, purple finger. “I expect you to do your duty by me, by our cause,” he says, smooth as silk and poison. “If the situation requires it, you may have to. I hope that seeing you will be enough incentive for any… rebellious friends you may have to stand down, to be willing to listen to what we have to say.”

“They won’t,” she says, immediately. “They’re not the sort of people to just stand down. They’re brave, sometimes stupid, but they have values and righteous indignation, and I’m sorry, but mass genocide goes seriously against those values. If you’re thinking just because I’m there, they won’t fight you, they’ll fight even harder? Those people, they don’t know me, they don’t care about me, they have very low opinions of me, some of them-”

She purposefully does not think of Steve Rogers.

“Seeing me with you will only confirm what they thought about me, that I’m evil and selfish and cruel and arrogant and that I only fight for myself and that I’m a sell-out. I can take it.” She shrugs. “I’ve been taking shit from people who think they know me my entire life. But they’ll take one look at me beside you, and they’ll fight even harder, they’ll fight to kill me, because thanks to you, I’m a traitor to my own fucking race now.”

Her mouth twists into an expression that is very much not a smile.

“I’m a traitor, and you execute traitors.”


	10. x.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: threatened domestic violence/assault, threatened forced pregnancy, emotional and psychological abuse.

Thanos mulls over what she says, very carefully. “The Avengers are formidable beings,” he agrees. “The Other has spoken to me of them. In particular, he mentioned to me the god of thunder, the Asgardian, Loki’s brother, and the green beast. He was quite… upset that Earth was not as weak as they were supposed to be. He told me that to challenge Earth’s heroes would be to court death itself. I was not as surprised as him, of course. I had known of you for many years at that point. I knew you hailed from Earth.” His face is tender and grave when he looks at her. “You are their greatest champion, their greatest defender. Without you, they are weak,” he says, earnestly. “Had it not been for you, Loki would have succeeded with his invasion. The Chitauri, while mindless, rabid dogs, are not simple, not easily vanquished; only you could have vanquished them.”

“You’re happy that I destroyed your army,” she says, slowly.

Thanos nods. “Of course. How could I not be? It proved to me how strong you were, how capable. None could have achieved such a feat but you. It was always meant to be you, Antonia,” he says, his eyes shining and dark.

Toni doesn’t want to touch that with a ten-feet pole. “They won’t give up that easily, even if I’m not there,” she insists. “Thor, Rogers, they’re not the type of men who surrender, who bend the knee, who yield. They’re stubborn sons of bitches, and who the fuck knows whom they’ve managed to recruit to the Avengers in the two years that I’ve been gone. The Hulk and Thor might not be the only heavy hitters on the team. You’d be stupid to underestimate them based on _old_ , obsolete information.”

“I would imagine they asked James Rhodes to replace you after your disappearance,” he says easily, without even looking at her.

Toni grows shock cold.

“What?” she says, unsure and fragile.

“You made him armour like yours, didn’t you?” he asks, curiously.

“I did,” she replies, cautiously.

“Would it then not be the Avengers’ next move to instate your friend as your replacement, following your disappearance?”

“I guess, but…”

_Oh, my God, that’s exactly what they would’ve done._

“Rhodey’s active military,” she stumbles over her words. “He can’t… the Avengers would be too big of a commitment for him, unless… unless he left the military. I guess he might do that if I was gone. He thinks I’m dead, right? He probably thinks I’m dead.”

“Yes, it is most likely,” Thanos replies. “There would have been no body for anyone to collect, and the wormhole was shut to them. Will you be able to fight him, should it come to that?”

Toni looks at him, sharply. “What?”

“Should we go to Earth and the Avengers stand against us, will you be able to fight James Rhodes, if he sees you and does not surrender?”

“I…” Toni trails off, unable to answer. “No,” she finally says.

Thanos’ eyes turn needle-sharp. “No?” he says, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“No,” she says, firmly, no-nonsense in her tone.

No, she won’t give him this, she doesn’t care what he does to her, but she won’t pretend she’s the sort of person that could lay a hand on Rhodey in anger.

She won’t do that, not even for Thanos, in light of his rage and violence.

“That would not be very intelligent,” Thanos remarks.

“I know.” Toni hesitates for an agonising moment. “Is this where you hit me as part of one of your lessons.”

Thanos rounds on her, his expression cast in hurt. “Why would you even ask this of me?”

“Because…” she trails off.

_Because that’s what I do._

“It doesn’t matter.” Toni shakes her head. “But I won’t fight him. No matter your lessons. I won’t hurt Rhodey. He’s a part of me. I love him, I won’t hurt him. I _won’t_.”

“It may not be just him,” Thanos points out. “After all, you made armour for your friend, Virginia, did you not?”

Toni’s skin crawls quietly. “I did,” she says, carefully.

“Do you not think that she will armour herself for a battle with me?” Thanos practically taunts.

Toni thinks of Pepper, the way she’d faced off against Obadiah, how she’d taken down Hammer, and what JARVIS has told her about what happened with Pepper and Aldrich Killian, her pale, clever eyes, and says, “Yes, she would.”

“Hogan is of no threat to me either,” Thanos continues. “He is some third-rate human fighter. My children would make quick work of him.”

 _I’ll kill them first_ , she thinks, rich with promise.

“And then, of course, there’s Sharon Carter. You think of her as a sister, or perhaps a daughter of your own. She has your fire and your rage and your strength. Would she have grieved for you, my love, I wonder?”

“Of course, she did,” she says, a blade’s edge to her voice.

“I am aware that she works for the intelligence organisation of the country you hail from. I have no doubt that she will fight as well.”

“Yes, she will,” she agrees, firmly, with only a hint of warning. “My godmother raised us to fight.”

“She did,” Thanos agrees. “Margaret Carter. I am somewhat fortunate she has taken to her bed and does not remember her own name half the time. I may have been unsure of my victory had she been strong enough to face me.”

 _Damn straight_ , Toni thinks viciously.

Toni’s fists clench and unclench around nothing. “She would’ve killed you,” she says, coldly, with all the faith of a woman who loves her godmother very much and knows exactly what her godmother was and could do in the prime of her life. “Now, are we done with the episode of _This is Your Life_ , because I’d like to get back to our original topic of conversation.”

Thanos smiles a father’s smile at her (that is enough to make her stomach curdle). “Even though I have no great opinion of human flesh, its weakness unprecedented, I kept your parts because I thought they might be useful. I have not done much work with human parts, you see. We see so few of them beyond your planet. Your race is not much for space travel. So, I acknowledged my own lack of knowledge, and kept them, thinking they may be of use, and then I thought, I thought of a line to come after us, a child or two that you may bear and raise in our image and hold close to your heart, and so, I foresaw the use for your parts.”

“But I mean, they’d be dead organs, right?” she pushes. “What makes you think you’d be able to extract a functional zygote from my ovaries?”

“The parts are not dead,” he reassures her.

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” Toni mutters under her breath.

“The parts are very much alive,” he says, ignoring her. “As such, it will be a feat of ease to retrieve a functional zygote to begin the reproductive process.”

“But how do you know my parts are even good?” she demands, her voice thin in her own ears. “For all you know my ovaries could be shrivelled up prunes, my eggs could be useless. I hate to break it to you, but when you harvested me like a dead sheep for a fucking animal trial, I had a dangerous nuclear weapon implanted in my chest, and I’d barely survived two lethal cardiothoracic surgeries in a filthy cave. I was quite literally twenty-four hours away from dying of heavy metal poisoning. I’d been waterboarded and starved and tortured and assaulted for months, before I wandered through the desert on my own for at least a week before someone found me and got me out of there. I’d sustained numerous injuries in my armour. Any one of those things, let alone a combination of them, could have ruined my reproductive system for good. I haven’t gotten my period since I returned from Afghanistan, because my system’s so fucked up. Besides, even before I had a bomb cleaving through my chest, I had pretty shitty habits that were not conducive to non-problematic childbirth. I drank a lot, I smoked, I did drugs. I go days without eating, and I sleep maybe four hours every three days. Prior to Afghanistan, I hadn’t gotten my periods on a somewhat settled schedule since I was twenty-five and my butler died. Plus, my mum, after me, had three miscarriages and one stillbirth. I was her only living child. This shit is hereditary. Why am I even a viable host for your progeny?”

“Because you are the only one worthy enough to bear my child,” Thanos says, simply, voice smooth as silk or poison. “I would have no other being, no other womb to be the mother of our line. If there are any concerns regarding the condition of your organs, we will deal with them in due time, but there is no reason for you to worry, my love. I only have great faith in your ability to do your duty.”

“And our species are compatible for procreation?” she asks, roughly. “You know that for sure?”

“I do not,” Thanos replies, easily. “But it is not that difficult to predict. You see, bar my appearance, my kind and yours are not so different genetically. I spoke of this to you before, I am not…”

His purple colouring does not reveal a blush per se, but she can see a change to his colouring, a little paler around his cheekbones, a water violet tinge where the rest of skin is a rich, pearly mulberry.

 _Wow, Thanos, the Mad Titan can feel shame,_ she thinks, scathingly.

He clears his throat. “I am not what my kind looks like normally. I was heavily deformed when my mother brought me into this world. My skin was purple, like the hide of an animal, and I was born larger than any other Titan. They called me an abomination,” he says, bluntly, his voice cold.

Toni waits with her lungs in her throat.

“But my race, the Titans, they had much of your look,” he explains. “My mother, she looked as you do, if not a somewhat taller, thinner… paler.”

His nose scrunches up when he regards her, as if her brown skin disappoints him, offends him, frustrates him, makes her less than perfect, makes her an unworthy genetic contributor or carrier for his child.

 _You and my father would’ve gotten along very well_.

She gives him a lukewarm, baleful look. “You got something you want to say to me about my skin colour, sweetheart?” she asks, flatly.

Thanos offers her a half-smile. “Nothing at all,” he says, as smooth as silk and poison sweet.

 _Bullshit_ , she wants to say but bites her tongue.

“But there should be no issue with our species combining to create a child together,” he goes on. “And if there are issues, we are on Earth no longer, my love. There is much medical advancement available to us that humans cannot partake in. You will be safe, if your health is your worry.”

“It’s one of them,” she agrees, dryly.

Thanos’ large palm seizes her chin, and for a brief moment, panic claws at her throat, thinking that she’s finally done it, she’s finally pushed him over the edge, and this is where he reacts, violently and without quarter.

But he just gives that soft, sad look of his like he’s just misunderstood.

“I am the last of my kind,” Thanos says, full of melancholy. “I do not want my race to end with me. There should be someone who comes after, who carries our stories and our ways. I have a duty to those who have died before me. I have chosen you as the mother of the last hope to a dead race. You should be honoured.”

 _As I should’ve been honoured when you shoved your fingers up inside me and made me bleed?_ Toni thinks, spitefully.

She swallows, thickly, past the knot in her throat. “I don’t want children,” she repeats, weakly.

Thanos clucks his tongue. “You say this now, but surely you will change your mind when our child curls up in your lap. He will have my strength and your compassion, my resolve and your loyalty. What more could you want?”

_God, of course you stick me with all the female, soft character traits. But hey, it’s not like I have strength or resolve or fury or pride or charm or honour or obstinacy or a sense of duty or anything. I’m all cotton candy, hide and seek, and fucking lullabies. Give me a fucking break._

“He?” she quotes, her voice thin in her own ears. “What are you going to do with a girl?”

“Boys are stronger,” Thanos says, firmly, his tone no-nonsense. “Girls will be prone to their emotions; they make attachments to things and to beings and it waylays their focus.”

“And boys don’t?” Toni snorts, showing her teeth. “All the men I’ve ever known have been prone to their emotions.”

“You have not known great men,” Thanos retorts.

“I have,” Toni says, coldly, with the barest hint of a smile. “I have known plenty, and they were all slaves to their emotion. Emotion isn’t a gendered thing. I dare you to look at your daughters and call them weak. You think Gamora and Nebula would forgive you that insult?”

“They wouldn’t,” Thanos agrees.

“I am not weak,” she grits out, leaning into that sweet honey drip of fury that lingers in her belly, a creature comfort since she’d been brought onto Thanos’ ship. “I am _not_ weak. I am stronger than hundred thousand men I’ve known.”

“You are,” Thanos agrees. He frowns. “Any daughter we have will be in your image. That would not be such an awful thing, I think.”

“Wow, thank you for the compliment,” she says, sardonically. “Still doesn’t mean that I’m okay with having your babies, though?”

“Neither am I content with your disobedience,” Thanos replies, a cold edge to his voice.

“You want to be a little more specific? I have been disobedient my entire life,” she flings back, smiling a poison-sweet smile. “And you seem to find the neatest things to throw back in my face.”

“Your armour,” Thanos says, watching her for a long, terrible moment. “You were not to find it, yet you went hunting.”

Toni shrugs. “It’s my weapon of choice.”

“If I had wanted you to have it, you would’ve woken up with it,” he rebukes.

“Do you actually have a reason for denying me my armour?” Toni demands.

“It is not the weapon for you,” he says, sternly.

Toni bares her teeth at him, recklessly. “I made that armour with my bare hands in a cave, while people were torturing me and molesting me and planning on feeding my corpse to their dogs. It’s the only thing that saved me from my homicidal, traitorous godfather, an army of drones and the alien militia that _you_ sent to subjugate my planet. It is the _only_ weapon for me. I wanted it back, so I took it back.”

Thanos’ hand lands on her hair, and she can’t help but flinch, the action coming like second nature to her – she’s regressed, it was an instinct she’d had with Ty for years, but she’d shed it in the time between. His grip tightens, and she feels it, her skull crushing inward, her head pounding.

She stills, waits for him to prove his point, and a knot loosens in her throat when his large purple hand leaves her.

“There are still so many lessons for you to learn,” he clucks his tongue like she’s an errant child.

She folds her hands in her lap, forces herself to stay quiet – _suffering is braver than dying_ , her mother used to say, _suffering is what God gives you for your faith, you have already surrendered yourself to him, what happens to your flesh is nothing compared to what awaits you at his side._

“I did not appreciate you playing your games behind my back,” he goes on to say. “You should not have stolen the armour back; it was not yours to steal-”

Toni bites back an affronted noise, which escapes her at the last moment. “Excuse me, it was not _mine_ to steal?” she lifts an eyebrow, shuddering from the rage,

His red eyes are cool and sharp when they consider her. “Everything you are is mine to deal with as I see fit,” he says, coldly. “Have I allowed you to run yourself roughshod on my warship? Of course not. You exist, because I allow you to exist, because I _want_ you to exist. You think you have some worth beyond that? You think you are deserving of something higher? You were a corpse in a metal coffin when I found you, did you know that? Just a speck of dying light amongst the universe.”

 _Wow_ , Toni thinks, setting her shoulders in a defensive slant, her stomach growing hot with shame. _Way to make someone feel good about themselves and their importance in the grand scheme of things_.

“You floated amongst the stars, and I could have let you go on like that. You would have died, eventually, your heart would have ceased to beat, your lungs would have stilled, and you would have shut your eyes, never to open them again. I could have left you out there for the Scavengers, filthy creatures, who would have found you, stripped you and your armour for scraps and parts to sell to wealthy bidders, and that would have been the death of the great Antonia Stark-”

 _“Is this the last defiance of the great Antonia Stark?”_ she remembers Yinsen saying and feels the fire lick at her toes, hungry and waiting.

“But I saw you, I have seen you for so long, I saw something in you that no one else could ever see. I recognised the same hunger, the same goodness, the same fury, the same injustice in you that I see in myself.”

“I am nothing like you,” she snarls.

“I _saved_ you,” he insists, sharp and full of fury, as if he’d exhausted all of his patience. “Do you even understand that? Do you even appreciate what I did for you? I understand this has been difficult for you, my love. But I grow weary with your defiance, your ingratitude. I could have left you out of there to die, for the bottom feeders of the universe to feast upon your corpse and that armour you hold so dear, but instead I took pity on you, I gave you life, and I freed you from a death that was unworthy of you.”

“Is that what you did?” she asks, carefully, featherlight but laden with warning.

Thanos bares his teeth, like swords, at her in a snarl. “Do you think you exist in some external state of being then? I dare you to owe your existence to any other being but myself-”

 _To me,_ she wants to scream at him, to rage and rail. _To me, to me, I owe my existence to me, you miserable fucking piece of shit._

“I saw your heart, Antonia Stark, an eternity ago,” he says, lowly. “You exist because I allow you to exist, because I _want_ you to exist, because I am the only one who wants you as you are-”

_You’re wrong, Rhodey wants me, Rhodey loves me, what do you fucking know about love?_

“You should be beholden to me,” he snaps, when he sees her attention wandering, fists clenching and unclenching around air against his thighs. “You should be grateful for your life. I could have let you die. Do you not understand that, woman? I saved you, I saved your life and spared you deformity, I made you strong, I gave you purpose, a family, someone to love, and you treat me with such disdain. You owe me more, Antonia.”

 _I owe you nothing_.

She stays silent, as he draws himself into a rage.

“You have kept me at arm’s length all these years, you have born my touch with disgust, you have given me nothing but hate and spite. You are still so ungrateful. I could have let you rot,” he snarls, his lip curled. “But I did not. You should be begging for my favour, my kindness, but it would seem that Proxima Midnight was correct, after all. Perhaps I was too quick in granting you my favour. I was so ensnared by what the stones showed me, I allowed myself to forget the faithlessness, the capriciousness, the thanklessness the selfishness of humankind. I am the only one who understands you, Antonia.”

“Is that so?” she allows herself to say, defiantly.

Thanos scowls down at her. “I am the only one who understands what you would do, what you are capable of. I have seen your heart, Antonia Stark, I have seen it fro so long. And so, I spared you. I not only spared you death, but I spared you the fate of ignominy. I spared you the scorn you would have faced at your companions’ hands for daring to see what they could not, for daring to act where they were weak. Would you like to know what I saw, Antonia?”

Toni remains silent.

“I saw a world terrified by the prospect that they were no longer the dominant species in this universe. I saw a world acting to dispose of threats even before they came into being.”

 _He’s talking about Project Insight_ , she realises.

“I saw you acting out in fear, under the thrall of a woman gifted with strength from the mind stone, a woman who despised you for daring to partake in war that stole her parents-”

Toni looks up, sharply. “What woman?”

Thanos just smiles at her and smooths a fat purple thumb over her cheekbone. “She made you see me, made you see what would happen if we had never met like this, what I am the harbinger of, and you made something, something as strong as you, in your image, to protect what you love, everything you love. Mother of monsters, indeed. But your child, unlike the rest, did not see your good heart. He saw your weakness, your poison, and he thought the rest of humankind as bad as you, and so he acted. You were able to stop him, but the damage was done, and your companions, the ones you defend so strongly, turned on you, as if you were the monster, as if you had tried to destroy them instead of save them. They stood by as you were assaulted and mocked and tormented, because they are not your friends, Antonia. They lied to you. They assaulted you, they spit their poison at you, they called you traitor and they turned their backs on you. They would not shed a single tear should you fall; instead, they would call your death justice.”

Toni shakes her head, fierce, ferocious, vehement, as if trying to shake off the dangerous thoughts that Thanos’ words put into her head.

_No, no, Rhodey loves me, JARVIS and the bots love me, Pepper loves me, Sharon loves me, Aunt Peggy loves me, Happy loves me, I am loved, I am grieved, I don’t care about anything else._

Thanos goes on, content to pare her, piece by piece. “They are not your family, in truth. They could never be your family. How could they, when you are so strong, so good, so perfect, and they are all weak children playing at a greater purpose they do not believe in.”

Toni’s mouth is dry, like cotton and sand.

“I know what you are capable of,” he says, solemn and strained. “I know what you can do, what you would do, what they would revile you for, what they would pull you down for, but I still love you, Antonia. I love you where they would hate you.”

“Rhodey wouldn’t,” Toni says, sternly, feeling her hands tingle. “Rhodey loves me, Rhodey would never hurt me.”

Then, she thinks of her mansion on her fortieth birthday, an armour cast in silver flying away, leaving her on the ground, and she looks away.

“You think that,” he says, as if pitying her. “You think that he would stand by you, you think he would defend you, support you, love you in anything. You love him, and he loves you. I have seen him, in your life; he is admirable. He took you in, called you sister, when you were young and alone. I am grateful to him for that. I wonder what sort of woman you would be without him.”

“I wouldn’t be much of one,” Toni agrees, coldly.

“You are right. But he would turn faithless like the rest of them. He has already shown you this.”

“Don’t,” Toni says, short and sharp. “Don’t talk about that. You don’t know enough about me, about _us_ , to talk about that.”

“I can talk about anything I like,” Thanos replies, easily. “He has not seen what you have seen, Antonia. He has not experienced what you have experienced. It is not a condemnation on him, of course, but it means that he cannot understand you, the things you do, the way you do them. He does not understand your hunger, your kindness, your will, your rage, your hope, your vision, your intelligence, your strength, your morality. I am sorry to say this, I know you love him, I know you look at him the way I look at Gamora-”

Inwardly, Toni seethes at the comparison, because she could never do an inch to Rhodey of what Thanos has done to Gamora.

“-but he is weak, like the rest of them,” Thanos finishes.

_He is not weak, he is not weak, Rhodey is far from weak, he’s the strongest person I know._

“But he does not understand you as I do. And so, you are alone in this world but for me.”

Toni swallows, thickly, a nervous knot forming in her belly. “I have Gamora and Nebula,” she says, defiantly, with dark, darting eyes.

Thanos laughs, low and halting. “Yes, you do; yes, I know you would twist everyone around me, those I can kin, and make them yours in an attempt to destroy me-”

Toni prays her face doesn’t flicker with surprise.

Thanos just squints at her, like he’s tired of her playing the idiot. He grips her by the jaw, tight and unyielding, making her hurt.

“Yes, you would, we both know you would, do not play games with me, Antonia,” he says, impatiently, a snarl. “You are my death, as we both know. So, you see, I had no reason to spare you other than kindness. You are a pinprick of matter in this universe, and I took pity on you. What does that tell of your worth here?”

Toni feels a tug of nausea low in her belly.

“I should have let your corpse float amongst the stars,” he says, sharp with sour resentment.

 _Yes, you should’ve_ , she thinks, letting her eyes drag close, even if her jaw aches.

“ _Titankiller_ , indeed,” he scoffs, full of scorn. “I saved you, even at the risk to me and mine, because you are mine, because you are _nothing_ without me, _nothing_ compared to me. You owe me your existence, So, yes, the armour was not _yours_ to steal.”

Toni breathes in, slow and deep.

Thanos relaxes, his hand leaving her chin and settling back in her lap, and he gives her smile, something soft, like he didn’t almost and couldn’t have wrenched her head right off her shoulders.

“You should not have dragged Gamora and Nebula into your little rebellion against me,” he says, gently.

Toni shrugs. “I asked, they answered, nothing more, nothing less,” she says, defiantly. “They didn’t do anything they didn’t want to.”

Thanos sighs. “There is a reason that I have not allowed you to run yourself roughshod on my warship,” he says, offering her a sly half-grin. “I would have met been met with a swift mutiny.” He chuckles. “I foresaw your… _competency_ in getting what you want, and I knew that my daughters were not strong enough to resist your thrall. They have proven me right once more, with their defiance, their aid of you, knowing that I would disapprove, knowing that I would rage. And when I sought to correct you, they stormed forwards, in an attempt to protect you, to avenge you. You have done well, my love. You have done just as I thought you would, but do not think the war is won.”

Toni lifts her chin, ever stubborn, ever fighting. “Oh?” she murmurs, with her jackal smile and her hollow eyes, because she doesn’t know how to stop fighting, fighting men like him, like her father, like Stane, like Ty.

“My daughters are not for you to take,” he says, simply.

Toni’s smile could cut like a knife. “Seems to me that they are,” she says, slyly.

For a brief, terrible moment, the look in his eyes, on his face, turns rancid. “You overreach,” he says, coldly. “They are mine to do with as I please.”

Toni shifts in her seat, angry. “They’re living, breathing beings. You don’t _own_ them.”

But, then again, look who she’s talking to.

“I do own them,” he says, instead, firmly. “As I own you. You cannot have them without my permission, Antonia. I have been kind so far, I had wanted you and them to bond; after all, who means more to me in this world than the three of you? But I will not allow you to make them stray from me, to take them as your own, to use them in some woeful, witless rebellion for whatever slights you may perceive I have done to you.”

“You sound jealous,” she says, delicately.

Thanos scowls at the mere thought. “I gave them life, I gave them purpose, I gave them a home,” he reminds her, almost kindly. “Do you think they would choose you over me?”

 _I think they would hold you down while I carved your heart out of your chest, or vice versa_ , she thinks, feeling that golden swell of pride.

“I think you’re nervous,” she says, instead, peering up at him with huge, dark eyes.

Thanos scoffs. “What do I have to be nervous about?”

“Because, you say that I’m the other half of you, that I was made for you,” she says, with only the smallest amount of disgust that she can show without getting a belt across the face. “If that’s true, if that’s _really_ what you want to believe, then, you have to believe that I’m just as capable of inspiring loyalty, _love_ , the way you are. If your Black Order loves you so, calls you _father_ , would die for you, would shield you from anything, then you have to believe that people are capable of doing the same for me. They have, they _are_ , I can do that too,” she snarls, baring the razor line of her teeth. “So, what makes you think that your daughters wouldn’t prefer me. I’m beautiful and kind and intelligent. I’m strong, I only want dead people who deserve it. I dislike most people on principle, but I don’t let that sway my hatred or my violence. I’ve lived a life just like they have, just different on finer points, but the life is still the same. I abhor abuse, rape. I would kill every rapist, I would burn each and every one of them alive, I would eat their hearts. Plus,” she leans forward, cat-lazy. “And I think this is the kicker, sweetheart, I don’t have all that messy backstory where I killed their parents. That matters a _lot_.”

Thanos holds a fist out, like a threat. “Is it time for another lesson, my love?” he asks, smoothly.

Fear reaches into her chest; she stifles it. “If that’s what you want,” she says, demurely. “If that’s what makes you feel better, strong, powerful, _invincible_ , like you’re better than me, go right ahead.”


	11. xi.

Instead of her face meeting his thick, purple fist, Thanos just smiles at her, something looming behind his eyes, sharp as a knife. A finger tips her chin up, and he presses a kiss to her hair, like they’re a couple, like they’re two people in love and this is par for the course for them, like Toni is even made for that in the first place.

“I am curious, though,” he says, casually.

Toni clears her throat. “Oh, about what?” she asks.

“About that device in the centre of your armour,” he says, delicately. “The device powers it, does it not?”

Toni feels that instinctive acid rush of fear, right in the gut, whenever someone mentions the arc reactor, because all she can imagine is Obadiah’s heaving, heavy form looming above her, all rage and greed, as his pudgy hand reaches into her chest and pulls it from her with a snap, her heart dying in his grasp, as he watches and waits for her to go blue and swollen, a corpse of his goddaughter – it’s the same fear she’d had when people assaulted her with JARVIS or the bots, the hunger, the want for something they didn’t understand, that they could use for their own benefit, even if JARVIS and DUM-E and U and BUTTERFINGERS were the children not pulled out from between her thighs but the children she’d made with her bare hands until they were bleeding, and they didn’t get that, the pig people that had wanted one of their own, wanted the coding, like the bots, like JARVIS were just factory assembled, factory spit out, all for the use of a capitalist agenda that Toni had shed like old, grotty skin for years, because how could they understand, how could they understand that when Toni had nothing, no one, when Jarvis was dead and in the dirt with the flowers, his corpse rotting, and Rhodey wasn’t talking to her and Pepper didn’t know how to handle her because they thought she was crazy and confused, she had JARVIS and she had the bots.

Thanos looks at her the same way, the same way like he’d peel her apart to bloodied bone so he could take from what he likes.

 _They don’t want your heart, Toni_ , she reminds herself, full of bile. _Your heart is worthless to them, all of them; they just want your mind, they want to make money off it and that’s all. You, the rest of you, are nothing, no one, worthless, just meat. You’re meat, extra special meat, but meat in the end._

“It does,” she replies, very carefully.

“It is quite interesting, for human architecture. I have not seen anything of its like in my travels,” he explains. “Where did it come from?”

Something crawls up her spine, over her skin, unpleasant and tingling. “I made it,” she says, coldly.

“Did you?” he asks, tilting his head in her direction.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Toni shrugs. “Because at the time, a bunch of men held me prisoner and were going to kill me in some awful, violent way if I didn’t make them weapons, and I didn’t want to make them weapons so they could then use those weapons against men, women and children who couldn’t defend themselves. So, I made a suit of armour that would get me away from them, and this… the device, I made it to power the armour. It’s called an arc reactor.”

“Arc reactor,” Thanos sounds out the words, tone thick with interest.

“My father,” she says, not understanding why she was volunteering the information, but unable to keep her tongue still (in any case, it wasn’t an option; if Thanos wanted information, he knew how to get it). “He built the arc reactor back in the 1970s to provide clean energy… for the future of mankind, you know.” She snorts. “He was a great humanitarian, my dad. So, he built a giant one, wanted it to replace nuclear power, and he used it to power my company’s headquarters. But it couldn’t be used for anything but that.”

“Until you came along,” Thanos says, proud on her behalf.

“Until I came along,” she agrees, feeling a strong heat in her skin at his words. “When I was kidnapped, I was injured pretty badly-”

Thanos presses the edge of a long, fat finger against her chest, at the spot between her breastbone, touching her as if it was his God-given right, as if there was no one else alive with the sort of right he had. “Here,” he says. “I have seen it.”

Toni resists the urge to break his finger. She clears her throat and looks away. “Then, you know that I was dying, I should’ve died-”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he says, sending her a blameworthy look. “You shouldn’t have because you couldn’t have, because you were always meant to be here, to come with me, to be with me. You say such things to diminish that, my love. It makes me thinks you do not want to be here-”

 _I don’t, I don’t_ , she wants to scream. _I’d give anything, do anything, kill anything, kill you if it means leaving this place, leaving you._

She looks down – the veins in her hands are sharp. He tips her head up with a finger under her jaw.

“Do not say such things again, beloved. It hurts me,” he says, solemnly. “There is no escape from me, from this life we must make together.”

 _Like there was no escaping the Ten Rings, but look what happened there_ is the smart thing, the cavalier thing, the fierce thing, the mean girl thing to say that she should say, but she keeps her mouth shut.

She can’t say much if he breaks her jaw, after all.

“Anyway, with the injuries I sustained, the doctor that fixed me up, he put in an electromagnet in my chest, hooked it up to a car battery. It was… inefficient to say the least, and I was getting infection upon infection what with all the torture I was being put through because I didn’t do what they say.”

Thanos bares his teeth in an unkind way, like he’s imagining how he’d peel the skin off bones from each man who’d held her down, kept her silent, beaten her, like he was different, like he was good and decent, and they were all monsters.

“So, I miniaturised the reactor that my father built, and I had the doctor who was kept captive with me install it into my chest.”

“And you survived?” Thanos asks, intrigued. “Even with such an unstable energy source in your body?”

Toni shrugs. “You tell me; you’re the one that cut it out of me, remember?” she points out, her smile cutting like a naked sword. “It seems to me that I survived fine with the arc reactor until _you_ came along.”

Thanos shakes his head. “I had thought it was hurting you; it did not make much sense to me,” he explains, almost mournfully.

“It _was_ hurting me,” she says, sharply, her voice like flinders. “It was always hurting me. Sometimes, some days, I couldn’t breathe because it was in my chest, crushing my lungs, my heart, my intestines. I was _always_ in pain.” She shakes her head. “But it was _mine_ , it was my choice and my pain, and you took that from me.”

“I sought to rid you of your pain,” he protests.

Toni snorts, full of scorn. “Oh, please, don’t pretend you didn’t anything for _my_ benefit. You thought I was imperfect, because of this thing in my chest. It made me unworthy, right? Not good enough for you in my present form? So, you took it out, because I didn’t live up to your precious standards. You _changed_ me to fit what you wanted from me, because I wasn’t good enough already, but I have always been good enough, I always been better, more, than anything anyone has ever wanted from me. You wanted me to be your perfect little doll, so you could trot me out, call yourself chosen, and have me sitting pretty by your side, so you could validate yourself, validate your mission.”

 _That isn’t love, that’s greed_ , she promises.

“But you failed,” she sighs. “Hurts, doesn’t it?

Thanos snarls. “I wanted you perfect, yes, but I wanted you healthy, strong; otherwise, you would have been unable to do much.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to serve you well,” Toni guesses, sourly.

“You wouldn’t have been able to serve yourself well,” Thanos corrects, sternly. “You were meant for more than just weak armour, weak beings, _weakness_. You were meant for strength, for vision, for bravery, for intelligence. And so, I saved you. That thing in your chest made your weak, imperfect, yes, but weak above all things. It gave you pain, where you should only be healthy and strong. That was no sin, no great insult to you, my love. I saved your life.”

“You cut away my entire chest and replaced it with a machine,” Toni hisses like a cat screeching.

“And now, you are healthy and strong, I will not apologise for it,” Thanos points out. “And you should not show me such ingratitude over it. That thing did not belong in your body, it made you weak, and it gave you pain. Clearly, I did the right thing by removing it.”

Toni shifts in her seat so she can fix him with a measured glance. “It stopped your precious mind stone,” she sneers at him.

Thanos stills, like he’s turned to stone, and he looks at her, impossible and dangerous. “What?” he demands.

“Your mind stone, in that sceptre that you gave Loki, he used it on me,” she says, voice flat and dead. “And it didn’t work. The spear touched my arc reactor, and nothing happened. He didn’t make me one of his Thumb Thumbs. He didn’t make an Igor or a Renfield. _It didn’t work_. So, you tell me what really made me weak.”

Thanos peers at her. “That’s not possible,” he declares.

“Oh?” Toni arches her eyebrow. “But it is.”

“The mind stone is not some alien artefact, like Gamora’s sword, Nebula’s cybernetics,” Thanos says, frustrated. “It is the pith of primordial creation, the thing that minds are made of. We are but dead flesh before it. It is what gives us thought, reason, decision. One cannot simply refuse the mind stone’s wants.”

“That’s exactly what I did,” Toni says, smugly. “I refused it.”

“It is not possible,” Thanos grits out.

“It is,” Toni taunts. “Maybe that mind stone’s not as powerful as you think it is.” She shrugs, all mockery. “Just saying,” she says, sweetly.

Thanos stares at her, a baleful, terrifying look escaping him, like he’d wring her throat for her not conforming to his truth regarding the universe.

That’s okay, she’s been getting those looks all her life.

“Now, while this conversation has been utterly stimulating, you didn’t answer my initial question.”

Thanos blinks at her, as if he were unable to process the non-sequitur. “Oh?”

“Where are we going?” she demands, reminding him.

Thanos cocks his head and smiles, toothy and too edged, like he’s not capable of smiling without genuine artifice (she wonders how much he’d had to smile about in his long life, if his existence began with his mother attempting to murder him as a newborn; then, she realises that she might be starting to feel sorry for the dickhead who wants to murder half the universe and immediately banishes that thought, along with any other warm feelings). “That was not your question.”

“What, you need literal transcripts of what I say?” she replies, scathingly. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you might have gotten bored on the Sanctuary,” Thanos says, simply.

“I didn’t think we were the sort of couple to go sightseeing,” she says, dryly, even though the word _couple_ leaves a sour, bitter taste in her mouth. “Plus, I didn’t think you cared about my boredom. I didn’t think you cared about anything I might be feeling as a result of being held as your prisoner on your spaceship.”

“You wound me, my love,” Thanos says, holding a hand to his breast and mocking her the whole while. “I thought you would be grateful.”

 _Just how many things do you want me to be grateful to you for?_ she thinks, dryly. _The clothes on my back, the food I eat, the bed I sleep in, your fingers in my cunt, making me bleed, your come on my thighs, the bruises your fingers, the back of your hand give me, should I be grateful for all of that as well?_

“There is much of the universe you have not seen,” he points out to her. “You came to us so long ago. I kept you on my ship to keep you safe. I was unsure of what the bottom feeders of the universe would do if they saw you, your strength, your fire. I wanted your loyalty first, as well, before I let you leave your arms, so that I could be sure that you would not forsake me, run off and leave me alone in this world.”

Toni snorts. “Don’t you _have_ children? How are you going to be alone in this world if I leave?” she points out, even if it curdles her stomach to refer to Gamora or Nebula as his children.

Thanos offers her a half-smile and pats her on the head. “I do have children, and I care for them very much. They are loyal, competent on occasion, but they are not you, they do not understand me like you, they are not _meant_ for me like you.” He sighs and his thumb drags over her hair. “They are sycophants, they mewl, and they clutch at my hems and they seek my favour like it puts air in their lungs, but you, you _fight_ me-”

Toni narrows her eyes. “You don’t like that,” she accuses.

Thanos laughs, a hard-cut sound. “Yes, on occasion, it becomes wearisome warring with you, beloved, but I prefer your fire to their honey. I enjoy the game with you sometimes.” He leans in, eyes gleaming. “It makes me hot.”

 _Oh, dear lord_ , she thinks, her stomach lurching.

“That’s not what you’ve told me before.”

“Oh, what would I do without your fire? But I could hardly tell you such things; you would have become even more disobedient than you already are, my love, and it is so tedious,” he sighs, like he’s old, like he’s bones are aching, like he wants nothing more to than to sit down and never get up again. “But then, I realised, it was the Antonia Stark with defiance that I plucked from the stars, unable to parted from her any moment longer, unable to surrender this chance at having you by my side. It was you, with all of your mouth and fire, that the stones showed me. Who am I to seek something different, and would I be happy with my final product?”

There are a thousand things that Toni could say in this moment, a thousand, angry words, decrying those fucked-up ideas of his, but she takes him with a grain of salt – this sounds, admirably, like the turning of a leaf, the spots changing on a leopard, but Toni knows better, she’s seen this trick before, with Howard, with Ty, with Stane, they pretend, it comes easy to them, like breathing, to get her walls down and then, they’re as poisonous as snakes, getting right into her soft spots.

“You are what is made for me, your fire and all,” he says, a passion edging his voice that borders madness. He takes her hand in his own, her small dark palm pressed against his wider, bulkier purple one. “You are the other half of me, we are one being in two bodies. I can only be so stern with you, my love, but I am a greedy man. I wanted your fidelity, your faith, I wanted everything from you, before I sent you out into the universe.”

“You sent with me that genocidal blue guy,” she points out.

“Under the watchful eye of both my daughters,” he retorts, kindly. “I was not foolish, and even now, I do not send you on your own. I accompany you.”

“So, you don’t trust me?” she says, feline and contented.

“I think it will take many more years before I trust you, beloved,” Thanos muses. “But, alas, I could not have been sure then, and I cannot be sure now. So I come with you. Besides,” he grins at her with all those sharp teeth, like swords. “I would want to see your face, when you see what I show you. You should know the world that you will rule over one day.”

“It’s funny,” she muses. “You talk about saving, doing what’s right, sparing the universe a shittier situation down the track, doing what no one else can do, seeing what no one else can see, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to _ruling_.”

Thanos shakes his head. “You misunderstand me.”

“No, I don’t think I do,” she says, gently. “I’ve seen it again and again. Half a hundred human men are just like you. _Loki_ was just like you.”

Thanos sneers. “Loki was a parasite, an easily manipulated parasite. He hated his brother, his father, his home, all of it, and he hated you most of all, humans, Earth, and if he couldn’t have Asgard’s throne, he would have Earth. You compare him to me? You think we are the same. You disappoint me, my love,” he says, a sharp edge to his voice. “I had thought you intelligent.”

“But my point still stands,” she says, stung a little by his words.

She’d always had her mind, the mind that was better than everyone else’s, when she had nothing else, when she didn’t have love or want or lust or warmth or kindness, the soft, simple things that everyone else relied on, took for granted, where she only had graves and graveyards and guilt, and sometimes, she thought, on this fucking warship, with this fucking genocidal maniac, even that was going.

What was she, without her mind?

She lifts her chin, meets his eyes. “But saving the world, the universe, it only matters as long as it gives you a throne, a crown in the end, doesn’t it?” she pushes. “Who cares if you’re not resentful, if you’re not _easily manipulated_ , if you’re not acting out because Daddy told you that you weren’t the fucking favourite and you wanted everyone around you to pay the price and feel as shitty as you did and took it out on them with violence, which by the way is every single fratboy rapist in existence? Would you care so much about overpopulation, the inability for this universe to sustain us, if you didn’t get one at the end, a throne, a crown? If there was no dominion at the end of all of this? If you went back to a fucking farm with vegetables and carrots and had to live in abject squalor just to make ends meet? Maybe, I’d believe you, then.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” he says, flatly.

She jerks a little, not expecting that. “What?”

“I want no throne, no crown,” he insists, voice cold. “I will return to my farm, _we will_ , when all of this is over, when our work is done. What did you think I meant when I said that, when we had used to stones the correct this universe, to bring balance to it, we would rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe? There are no castles, no servants, no gold in my future, my love, _our future_. Just us, our children, if they remain, and a grateful universe.”

Toni looks away, her cheeks colouring in disgust, in rage, in abject disownment of the idea, the picture he makes for them in his mind.

Thanos takes that the wrong way, though. He clucks his tongue and seizes her jaw in his wrought-iron grip and turns her head to face him.

“I know you come from wealth, beloved,” he soothes. “I know you were raised in jewels and gold and silk. I am sorry that I cannot give you this, the life that you were raised in, but I think you will find that the life we will have after this will be more fulfilling than what you had before. I know it will be difficult for you to adjust, but the luxury was empty, it made you _feel_ empty; this will help you, this will be rewarding.”

“It’ll give me purpose?” she taunts, just to be a bitch.

It goes the other way with him, and he just smiles, like she’s finally getting it, like he’s finally gotten through to her, made her see his fucking light.

_Give me a fucking break._

“In any case, just because our purpose is solemn, sanctified, does not mean that you should not see the beauty of this universe for the sake of seeing beauty,” Thanos muses. “Otherwise, how else would you appreciate properly what we have to do? So, I brought you here.”

“Where is _here_?” she asks, curiously, as the pod lands on a built surface, which shudders under their weight.

She peers out of the window, and sees nothing but a railing, and the world bleeding red behind it, a wall of blood, a violet riot of colour that sets her teeth on edge.

 _What the absolute fuck_?

“There is much of the universe you haven’t seen,” Thanos says from behind her, his voice amused. He reached out to smooth her hand over her hair, as if he can’t himself from laying a hand on her. “I thought you might like to see it.”

Toni licks her lips, her eyes fixed on the sight before her. “You’re not the tourist type.”

“I appreciate beauty just like anyone else,” Thanos says, defensively, with a light edge to his voice, so she knows that he won’t reach out and fist his hand in her hair and pull her to his side.

“Where are we?” she asks, a little dizzy with what she can see here, as she peers over the edge.

The sky (if what is above her can even be called a sky) runs red. 

“They call it the Crunch,” Thanos explains. “You, my love, are standing at the very edge of the universe.”

“What’s beyond it?” she blurts out, reaching out with her hand, her fingers (just once, let her touch it just once, maybe she’ll pass through, maybe she’ll die, but let her go through, like knife through butter).

Thanos pulls her back before she can.

Of course, he pulls her back.

If she dies, if she lives, it all has to be on his terms.

“Infinity,” he says, fondly. “But not for us, not now. Perhaps, not ever.”

Her teeth are blinding when she flashes them at him, white against the dark of her skin. “And why is that?” she demands.

Thanos tilts his head, rolling his eyes like she’s a child who just doesn’t _get_ it. “You are no mere wanderer, my love. You have a greater purpose than that; _we_ have much to do.”

_I don’t want any part of anything that you do. I don’t want any part of your bloodletting, what you call peace and mercy. I don’t want any part of you. I want to go home. I want to see Rhodey. I want to go home._

She doesn’t say any of this; instead, she meets his eyes, almost defiantly. “There aren’t many people in this universe that can make decisions for me.”

 _Certainly not the likes of you_.

The lines in Thanos’ large face soften. “Do not see that as negative,” he chides.

She feels like a stubborn, errant, unruly child, as she always had in front of Howard, as if she’s incapable of understanding his motives, the fact that he’s ultimately doing it for her own good, but she will one day, she will appreciate him one day – it’s _bullshit_.

“You are very young,” he reminds her, as if that excuses the way he treats her like a kicked dog. “I have been doing this, this work, for a very long time. You have come new to this, and you have much to learn, but I will teach you. _This_ is how I teach you. Until you know better, I will make the decisions I see fit for you.”

She appreciates that, at least. Ty wouldn’t have said that, Ty would’ve made her feel like crap for even suggesting that he was capable of that kind of emotional abuse. At least, Thanos is willing to admit what he is, what he’s doing to her.

He touches her cheek, even if her skin crawls.

“Do not worry, my love. I will be here to guide you.”

Toni waits, she waits for him to withdraw his hand and when he does, she turns her head back to the edge.

A nebulous and distant feeling swells inside her, and she almost crumples, right there, in an ungainly heap, clutching onto the railing with iron fists, knuckles taut against her skin. She tries to catch it, cage it behind her teeth, and a cry escapes her, her head pounding, as if something is weight down on her, heavy and dense, like she’s trapped in a hydraulic press.

Her stomach tumbles, restlessly, and her blood beats hot, and she feels it coming, something, undefinable, a raging deluge, coating her nose and throat, like sweat or blood and then-

Thanos’ hand lands hard, punishing on her shoulder. When she turns her head, his red eyes are like thin slits, his back tilting away from her.

“What is it?” she asks, confused, pained, her throat cinched shut.

“Stay behind me,” he orders, his voice terse, shouldering in front of her, the broad, purple width of him enough to hide her thin, soft body completely.

He unsheathes his sword, a terribly large thing, the width of her waist and the height of her, raising it so the tip cuts through the air, just as something pushes and swells, before materialising, something as dark as old gold and hard as stone, gleaming.

It towers over them, ranging high and high, with the body of a woman, breasts, a deep half-moon between its thighs, and a mane of metal like hair, looping over shoulder.

“Thanos, son of A’Lars,” it intones. It tilts his head. “Ahalya, daughter of Maushmi.”

Toni startles.

No one ever mentions her mother.

Maushmi Thirunarayan, who died as Maria Stark, is a non-existent being.

But she is her mother’s daughter, as much as she is her father’s daughter.

“Who are you?” she asks, bravely, stepping out from underneath Thanos’ looming shadow.

He curses and glares at her, the look laden with warning, but she doesn’t care.

“I am Brio,” it answers, its voice like starlight, like honey, like promise. It sets her teeth on edge and makes something flutter between her legs. “Brio of Life.”

“And what do you want with us?”

Thanos’ hand comes down hard around her wrist. “She is a Celestial,” he hisses at her, trying to pull her back.

He succeeds only because of his massive bulk and the flex of muscle in his arm.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” Toni asks, bluntly. She turns back to Brio. “Who are you? What do you want?” she asks, wearily.

She’s fresh out of fucks to give anymore.

“Thanos is correct. I am a Celestial, the first Celestial.” Brio tilts its ( _her_?) head. “I bore them all, but before that, before them, I was a Proemial God, charged with preparing what exists for what is to come.”

In her hands, a sword appears, double-bladed and as big as she is, like a giant cleaver.

“For you, Great Titan,” she says.

With a flick of her wrist, the sword floats over to Thanos, who stares at it, impossibly and dangerous, before taking hold of it, almost satisfied, as if this was owed to him.

“It will be of use to you,” she says, ominously.

 _Yeah, that’s what he needs, another giant sword to kill more people with_ , she thinks, dryly.

“And you.”

Toni startles, her throat flexing, and Brio watches her with an uncomfortable, thoughtful intensity that feels like acid rippling right across her body.

A pit gapes open in her stomach, behind her eyes, between her legs, and in her chest, at those gold, gold eyes.

A brief, incoherent sound escapes her.

“What do you want with me?” she demands.

“Everything,” Brio says.

She opens her palm, and Toni burns.

* * *

Fire is eating her up.

It licks at her insides, from her toes up her legs, to her cunt, seething inside her, into her belly, the womb that no longer exists, into her chest, burning her lungs and her heart and her ribs and rising into her throat like sour bile, before it claws out of her mouth and eyes.

She screams.

She screams and screams and screams.

There are nails in her face, pulling and ripping, and she bleeds.

That’s all she is now, bleeding and screaming.

The world bleeds out, dark and blurred, and at the end of everything, at the end of _her_ , she stands in a desert.

It always comes back to the desert.

She can taste the blood and sand in her mouth, and the grains rub at her bare feet. Her eyes drag up to meet the sun, and it doesn’t burn.

Instead, it hangs low, heavy, swollen in the sky, brighter than gold, ripe as an open peach, and before she even knows what she’s doing, she’s lumbering to meet it, hand stretching out, fingers curled in a claw, and she’s plucking it from the sky, the whole sun.

It comes away so easily, like pulling water from a river, and her hand, her arm is streaked with gold, as she holds this thing in her hair, pulsing and soft, lush gold, like it’s a living child in the palm of her hand.

She studies it with dark, hazy eyes, tilting her head, and her hand curls around it, squeezing and squeezing, until it cracks open, and all that gold slips into her body, as easy as a disease.

It swells and stretches inside of her, and her mouth opens to scream, ugly and loud, as the sensation curls tight around her spine, spreading, a terrible, terrible heat lurching inside her, to the pit of her belly, her cunt, her legs, her heart, her throat, her mouth and eyes, like a gaping void that doesn’t end.

A scream rends the air, the nightmare she finds herself in, and she realises that it’s her scream, her voice, thin and distorted, and she’s looking down, seeing her body floating in the middle of this vast, open desert, and the sun no longer in the sky because it’s inside her body now, eating her up from the inside out, turning her into something old and boundless.

The moment stretches taut, and then, time snaps back with a shock, and the entirety of all presses in on all sides, grinding into her, the shape of infinity hands all over her skin, licking into her mouth, pushing against her ribs.

Her body splits open, cleanly, and fire bleeds out.

She is only fire now.


	12. xii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This satisfies the "Skrulls" square (N3) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo.

Her eyes open and she’s standing in black, her feet not even touching the ground, just floating, suspended.

A line, a line of red, the colour of blood, reaches from her insides, and she follows it, her feet landing in a pool of blood and padding forward.

The world morphs around her, and she sees it all, everything there is to see, all in the fraction of a moment.

She walks past a little boy at temple, praying, with his head lowered and covered by a _yarmulke_ , while an old man says words in a haunting voice, reading from a book. When he comes home, his father knocks him into a table, and outside, there are terrible screams, terrible violence. That boy turns into a man, a man who shouts at a little girl who stares up at him, defiantly, tears edging her eyes. Later, he watches her sleep, a shadow in the doorway, and he starts, when she begins to struggle in her sheets, in the throes of a nightmare, as if to save her from it, but hangs his head and leaves instead.

A little girl runs past her, giggling, skin as dark as hers, eyes as dark as hers, hair as dark as hers, crooked teeth, and then, she turns into a woman, a woman who sits in front of an idol, made of black stone, blacker than the shade of her hair, in a thin, cotton saree, her long, damp hair tied up in a towel at the nape of her neck, and prays for her husband, her daughter, for herself, to be free of a unkind union. That woman makes friends with a woman who serves those who starved her people, killed her people, stole from her people, drew lines on a country that didn’t belong to them, all for the love of a husband who leaves for a brighter thing, brighter than her, brighter than the daughter she gave him; she grips the little girl’s shoulder and finds a bottle of wine to get her through the rest of the day and the night.

Something brushes by her hand, and she looks up to see the handsome visage of a man bow courteously before a little girl, offering her his hand. The little girl laughs, bright and proud, baring crooked teeth, and takes his hand, and he dances with her in a glamorous living room, giving her a fond, loving smile when she isn’t looking. Later, he tucks her into bed, smooths her hair away from her shoulder and presses his mouth to her hair.

He loves her, and she loves him.

He has a mate, the twin half of his soul, just as the little girl is the twin half of his heart, a woman with hair like beaten copper, and she sits with the little girl on her lap, with four cups of wine and a Seder plate. She teaches the little girl to swear in Yiddish and Hebrew and Hungarian and Russian until they’re rolling around the floor, laughing. Later, she feigns a punch, and the little girl blocks it, and she teaches her how to wrap her thighs around a man’s neck and use his own weight against him.

There is boy with golden hair and a line of straight, white teeth, handsome as the sun. He smiles at the little girl who now blossoms into a beautiful young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes and dark skin just like her mother’s, but with her father’s sharp, sharp smile. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. One night, he heaves himself on top of her, and she stares at him with love and lust and life, and he eases inside her, and she parts her mouth eagerly under his. Then, she’s cowering in front of him in the shower, water raining down on both of them, her hair damp and curling around her face, bruises, peach and yellow and purpled all over her arms and her legs and hips and stomach, in the shape of fingers and fists, and one the colour and size of a ripe blackberry around her eye, and he’s looming over her, fist clenched, face contorted with rage, and he kicks her, almost viciously, like he's beating a sick dog, in the stomach, and she sobs, curling in on herself.

He leans down, crouches in the water, runs a hand through her hair, and she cringes away from him. He doesn’t like that, so he knots that hand in her hair, tight against her scalp, and pulls her to her feet, despite her cry and kisses her and kisses her and kisses her until she’s moaning and grabbing his shoulders and letting him slot his hips and hard cock between her thighs and slipping inside her so easily, because this is the only way he forgives her.

There’s another boy, a better boy, with dark skin and dark eyes and dark hair, and he and the girl buy greasy cheese pizza and they eat it in a cold dorm room, on her bed, shoulder to shoulder, chatting. He makes her laugh, and he never leaves. He helps her screw a bolt into a robot, which chirps in good humour and nudges its claw against both of their palms. He climbs into a hospital bed, while she sobs, her body black and blue and swollen and hurting, her jaw wired shut, and marks on her throat like claws because her golden boy had tried to kill her, and she can’t speak, and she’s broken and bloodied and bruised, and she knows that her golden boy is a monster and he hates her, even if he loves her and she loves him, and this boy, this boy is her friend, her soulmate, they are the ones who are two halves of one whole, and he holds her while she sobs in pain and fear and hurt and he promises her, he promises her now and always that if the golden boy comes near her, if anyone comes near her and tries to hurt her, he will kill them for her. And then, he makes some stupid joke, with tears in his eyes, and her sobs turn to wet giggles, and he laughs with her and kisses her hair, still crying, because he thought she was dead, he thought she would die and leave him there, and she can’t do that.

That boy turns into a man, a handsome man, who holds the girl’s hand when her parents die and she has to burn their bodies on her own, because she’s all that’s left. That man smiles down at her, as she buttons his dress uniform and sends him off to fight wars and a be a hero, the likes of which she can never be. He comes home to her, when he can, and it’s like nothing ever changes between them. When she’s kidnapped, held prisoner, scared and determined and fighting on her own, he’s the only one who looks for her. He finds her in a desert, and he falls to his knees in front of her, and he curls a hand around the nape of her neck and he tells her, _next time, you ride with me_. She sobs and falls into his arms. Later, the man and woman fight, and he storms away, and the girl is left bereft. He comes back, though. They fight again, and he comes back. He always comes back, and she’s always waiting for him. He is man who fights with her, fights for her, loves her, mourns for her. She sees him outside a grave, her grave, tears on his cheeks. He loves her. _He loves her._

A woman calls out, and she turns. She’s beautiful with dark hair and a red mouth, and there’s a little girl at her hip. The woman puts a gun in the little girl’s hand, shows her to shoot it, how to beat someone senseless with a bag full of bricks. The woman gives the little girl lipstick, paints it on her mouth and smiles at how beautiful she looks. The woman looks at the little girl’s mother, guilt choking her throat, and wants apologies to spill out, apologies for people that came before her, came with her, came after her, apologies for the atrocities that she herself has contributed to, aided while being wilfully ignorant as to whom would suffer, apologies that will never make anything better for centuries of injustice and hatred and exploitation and _rape_. Years later, after the mother is dead, the woman looks at the little girl with pale, distant eyes, and calls her _Maria_ , says _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ , calls her _Howard_ , say _you need to treat that girl of yours better_ , and the little girl, now a woman, walks away.

There’s a woman with red hair, like copper, threatening to blind a security guard. The little girl, now a woman, buys her shoes to reward her. The woman with red hair peers over a stretcher with her lying on it, smooths back her hair, promises everything is going to be okay, and pulls her heart out of her chest.

The little girl is a woman now, and she sees her dancing with another little girl in a glamorous living room. She plays the piano for her, sings until the little girl falls asleep in her arms, and she carries the girl, and she puts her to sleep in her own bed. They are both women now, and they spar together, and they laugh together and at night, they watch movies of happier people together and get drunk together and swear about all the stupid people in their lives.

And at the centre, the centre of everything, she sees the little girl.

She sees a hundred, thousand different lives for that little girl.

There’s a man, a man she sees often, handsome, with golden hair and blue eyes and a strong jaw, who can carry mountains in his hand. This man and the little girl, now a woman, they are born to fight, to fight each other, to fight with each other, to fight the world and the universe and the monsters in the universe, but they do it together, always. In all lives, they love each other. In some lives, though, that love is something more. In some lives, they have children together, a boy named Peter and a girl named Maushmi that look like her and sometimes look like him. In some lives, they get married, and it’s beautiful, and it stops a war. In some lives, they marry, and it does nothing to stop that war. The ending to that is painful and terrible and it breaks both of them, but they never stop loving each other. In most lives, wife and husband or not, lovers or not, friends or not, they die together. They are always meant to die together.

Sometimes, there’s another man, this one with dark hair and pale eyes and a metal arm that makes her wet and a hungry, haunted look in his face that is sometimes matched with her own. In every life but one, he kills her parents (in that one he doesn’t, they never meet, and her life is just the slightest more terrible). She always watches it happen; either, she’s told about it beforehand, is given the opportunity to come to terms with that blow in advance, or she sees it in a video in a cold, Siberian base with a man who betrayed her standing at her shoulder and this man, this hungry, haunted man watches her, not the video, because he already knows what he will see there; he’s more interested in her. A part of her hates him for it, but in some worlds, many worlds, she falls in love with him too. Theirs is sometimes a better relationship than her with the golden man; she loves him and he loves her, and he gets her, and in truth, at the pith of themselves, the broken, mean, hurting creature inside her matches with the broken, mean, hurting creature inside him. In most lives, he outlives her, as is right – he never got half the life she did, always the knife in the dark for someone else. She is the one to stand up to the monsters in the world, bare her teeth and ruin their dastardly plans, and he is the one to burn her, to mourn her, to live after her. Often, he finds someone else to love, but they never burn as bright as she did.

There are other men in other lives: one is a god of storms, and when he touches her, she is set alight; another is a god of lies, his tongue slick and slippery, and no one gets under her skin the way he does; there’s one with an obscene urge to wear purple and eyes like a hawk; there’s one that is half god and a rogue from space; there’s a man in a sharp suit, grounded and earnest, and he makes her smile like she is still a young girl; there’s a man with gold eyes and the sort of steady, solid quality that makes the blood hot in his face – he watches everything, has seen everything, and he chooses her; another is unassuming but strong, constant, careful, he looks at her and sees something broken, but not unworthy, and he swoops in; another is a king, a great saviour, and their lives are separate, never blending the way that her lives with the others do, but he rules the parts of her life that are his and he makes her better for it; another ducks his head down and smiles shyly when he sees her, but when they do, him and the beast lurking under his skin look at her like she could paint the sun into the sky; another is a mighty warrior from the mountains, gruff and indiscreet at first, but he is soft with her, only with her; another is angry, so angry, and he lopes like a wolf caught in a cage and ready to start a fight – he might never love her like she wants to be loved, but she has always loved a good fight just as much.

There are women in those lives too: one has red-gold hair, like fire, with tall heels and a striking, sharp efficiency that makes her wet, and she’s always there, when she turns her head, a steadfast, endless presence, hand in her hand, hip against hip, the other half of her; there’s another with hair like dark copper, who slips into her life like a demon taking possession, needling and shifting and playing until she doesn’t know what her life is without her; there’s one with a no-nonsense haircut, smart and resourceful, but she knows exactly what it takes to get the job done, and there’s something inherently intriguing about that; there’s one that worries her, her eyes shining and mad, her hands covered in blood, who makes her see things that will never be there and she savours that, the dissonance, like it tastes sweeter than honey; there’s one who is kind, who raises her husband’s nephew like he is the child of her own body, and when they press together under bedsheets, she feels warmer than she ever has before; there is one that has a sword, a rippling blade of otherworldly steel, and a cold, haughty look in her eyes, this one steals her for her own, and she has no intention of ever leaving.

There are some lives with no men, with no women, with lovers at all, just her. There are lives where she is cruel and capricious and just in equal measure and rules over an entire world, on a throne made of iron and armour that lives in her body like a disease. There are lives where she is a brothel owner in a frontier town and falls in love with a handsome, stalwart sheriff. There are lives where she is a great adventurer, lives where she is a goddess, lives where she has magic at her disposal, lives where she is a storyteller, lives where she is a teacher with blue hair, and sometimes, there are just lives where she is happy with someone who loves her and a gaggle of children that she loves.

There are a hundred thousand lifetimes she sees, and then, she sees the little girl, meets her in the desert once more, her feet hot against the sand.

This dark, delicate little girl holds out her hand for her, her mouth pink and plump, her eyes shining, and says, “there’s a lot you’ve missed out on, but you need to know. You need to know, Toni.”

And in an instant, a painful, terrible instant, she knows it all, she sees it all. She sees the Infinity Stones, all six, as they come into existence; she sees as the suns and the moons and the planet form into something from nothing; she sees the Celestials, in their hand the Power Stone, and their judgment across the worlds; she sees them trap the stone in an orb and leave it in a vault on Morag; she watches as the Celestial Ego is born, as he builds a planet around himself and begins poisoning others; she watches a meteorite of vibranium strikes the country that will be known as Wakanda; she watches as the Masters of the Mystic Arts come together for the first time; she sees the Convergence, the birth of Hela, Odin’s conquest, the massacre of the Valkyrie, the birth of Thor and Loki, the war of the Kree and Skrulls, the war of the Kree and the Nova. She watches as Thanos is born to a mother who hates him, who wails at the sight of him, her eyes shining with rage. She watches as Odin hides the Tesseract on Earth, only to be unearthed by the Red Skull five hundred years later. She watches the moment when Howard Stark is born, when Bucky Barnes is born, when Steve Rogers is born, when Peggy Carter is born, when Edwin Jarvis is born and Ana Jarvis and Maria Stark and James Rhodes and Pepper Potts and Tiberius Stone and all the people that Antonia Stark loves his born.

She’s there when Steve Rogers becomes strong and stalwart and takes up the shield for the first time. She’s there when Bucky Barnes falls off a train and becomes HYDRA’s caged, kneeling pet. She’s there when Howard and Maria Stark are married. She’s there when Edwin Jarvis finds out that his wife can no longer have children. She’s there when Maria Stark brings a daughter into the world. She’s there when Peggy Carter buries a husband. She’s there when Maria Stark bleeds out children after children. She’s there when Howard and Maria Stark are killed by the Winter Soldier. She’s there when Ana Jarvis stops breathing one night in her sleep. She’s there when Edwin Jarvis dies like a dog in the street.

She’s there when Antonia Stark puts on her iron crown, an empire in her hands.

She’s there when Carol Danvers bleeds blue for the first time.

She’s there when Thanos’ army opens fire on the Zehoberei, and Gamora is left without a mother, a family, a country.

She’s there when a Luphomoid family is murdered brutally and Nebula is left cowering before Thanos, begging for everything.

She’s there when Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff meet in a filthy little hotel room in Budapest.

She’s there when Bruce Banner slams a green syringe into his veins, and the Hulk is born.

She’s there when Antonia Stark’s chest opens up in the middle of the desert, and half her heart, her lungs is replaced with starlight.

She’s there when Antonia Stark lies on the couch, half-dead and still dying, with a hole in her heart, as the ogre looms over her and touches her to his heart’s content.

She’s there when Thor touches Earth for the first time in hundreds of years.

She’s there when they find Steve Rogers at the bottom of the ocean, when he opens his eyes for the first time in seventy years.

She’s there when a hole opens in Earth’s sky and monsters bleed from the chasm.

She’s there when the Tesseract ( _sister_ ) and the Sceptre ( _brother_ ) touch and a world stops beating for a single, terrible instant.

She’s there when Antonia Stark saddles a bomb on her back and carries it through a bleeding sky, into space, and destroys an entire race.

She’s there when the Avengers all go their own way, grieving a woman they didn’t even know.

She’s there when James Rhodes and Pepper Potts fight an army of fire all on their own.

She’s there when SHIELD is HYDRA, and the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers almost kills himself to find his friend.

She’s there when Dark Elves raid Earth, and Thor destroys all of Greenwich and almost all of London in the battle.

She’s there when Bruce Banner and James Rhodes, eyes shining and mad, create a child-monster, Ultron.

She’s there when the Hulk destroys Johannesburg.

She’s there when Sokovia falls.

She’s there when five super soldiers turn Central Europe into a mauling ground.

She’s there when Thanos touches down on Earth, his children at his back, his bride at his hip.

She’s there when Thanos’ bride, a woman who was once Antonia Stark, cuts down the people she loved most in the world once, slices open the throat of the man who loved her best and stains her hands with his lifeblood, walks among all of their corpses, a graveyard of her own making.

She’s there when the stones ( _brothers, sisters_ ) fall into his hands, one by one, and he snaps, an unforgiving, shrill sound, and half the universe dies, just like that.

In that world, Thanos, once he is done, kills his bride and then takes a blade to his own throat.

In that world, she is caged, she is without teeth.

In this world, she is _all_ teeth. 

In this world, this is the end.

The end is where she sees her.

She comes for her, with a broad, nightmarish smile, half corpse, half girl, naked and covered in blood, the skin that she has, that isn’t just rotted, fetid flesh and bone.

She touches Toni’s cheek.

“Titankiller, Godkiller, Mother of Monsters, Mother of Madness,” she sighs, satisfied and still hungry. “You have come to me at last.”

She kisses her, and Toni, Antonia, Ahalya, she burns again.

* * *

When her eyes open, something is different.

 _She_ is different.

She is dark and cold.

She is a dark, cold female.

There is only one warmth in her, in her eyes, in her heart, in her stomach, between her legs, and she pulses.

And then, she closes her eyes, and she runs her tongue over her lower lip, laughing breathlessly at something she can’t define.

The warmth inside her grows, swells like a bruise, until it touches her toes and her hair, and it turns to fire, red-hot fire, flames, and she rises to her feet, naked, and the flames lick at her, lick and lick until the hair is burnt from her skin, and metal crumbles under the weight of the embers, and her flesh returns, beautiful and whole and brown-flushed, the curve of breasts and a flat belly and the hair between her legs, curling and dark.

She smooths a hand over her the skin of her arms, her legs, her belly, cups a breast in her palm, thumb smoothing over her nipple, as if she’s a child and discovering new flesh for the first time.

She stares down at her hands.

They are lined with old gold, smouldering, like fire lurking just under skin and flesh.

She is fire made flesh.

“You’re alive.”

She lifts her head and meets Nebula’s black, black eyes.

“We thought you were dead,” she says, triumphantly, smiling feline and contented. “My father said you just collapsed in his arms. He carried you back here, and then, _that_ happened.” She gestures at the way the gold, the fire paints over her body, like bruises, like lovers’ marks, like knowledge. “It’s you, _you’re_ the soul stone,” she says, half in awe, half flat like this is the worst thing she’s ever heard.

 _I am… human,_ she thinks, confused, willing her tongue to form the words, but no sound comes out. _My name is Antonia Stark. I am the daughter of Howard Stark and Maushmi Stark. I am human._

Her blood runs hot, all fire, and she runs a hand down the length of her arm, charmed, distracted by how soft the skin is, all silk and burned honey.

 _No, I cannot be human,_ she realises, smiling and smiling. _I was a dark, delicate girl, but I was wrong to think that. I am nothing. I am everything. I am no one. I am everyone._

_I am everyone._

“I am everyone,” she says, and her voice comes out like dragging stone.

“What?” Nebula demands, cocking her head in confusion.

“I am everyone,” she repeats.

She leans forward, catches Nebula’s jaw in her hand and favours her with a long kiss on the mouth.

Nebula jerks away with a scowl of absolute murder. “What are you _doing_?” she hisses at her like she’s about to belt her across the face.

“What’s going on?”

She turns her head (she’s not quite sure what to call herself in her head; is it _Antonia,_ is it _Ahalya,_ is it _Toni_ , what name is hers?) and she sees Gamora standing in the doorway to the room.

Strange, she remembers Gamora and Nebula, but she doesn’t know what to call herself.

“Antonia?” Gamora says, concerned and so careful, her voice unbearably soft. “Are you alright?”

“I am the soul stone,” she says, almost gleefully.

Gamora’s face flickers with a smile. “Yes, I know.”

“We’re leaving,” Toni says, her eyes somewhat unseeing.

Gamora frowns and exchanges a look with Nebula. “What? What are you talking about?”

“We’re leaving now,” Toni says, slowly, her mouth curving into a smile with teeth. “We have no more reason to stay here.”

“Toni, we can’t just-” Gamora tries to protest.

“You are foolish if you think-” Nebula sneers.

“It’s alright, Gamora, Nebula, it’s alright. You don’t have to be afraid. He can’t hurt you ever again,” Toni tells them, gently. “I won’t let him, I’ll protect you from him, and now, he’s no threat to me. I am the soul stone. Don’t you know what that means?”

Gamora’s jaw clenches, and she looks away.

Toni’s eyes burn, not in the way that tears are coming, but in the way that she thinks her eyes are on fire, her body is on fire.

“I can do whatever I want,” Toni tells them, still smiling, still so deliriously happy. “Don’t you understand? I can do whatever I want. I don’t want to stay here with that monster anymore, and now, I have no chains on me. I won’t let him keep those chains on you either, both of you. Come with me; let’s leave this place. Let’s do something more than being Thanos’ dogs of war.”

“He will kill us all,” Nebula says, her voice almost quavering. “Don’t you understand, woman? He will kill us all, and he will start with us and end with you, and what life could be better than surviving _that_?”

“Every life, all the lives,” is Toni’s answer. “I want to give that to you. I can do that for you.”

Nebula’s face takes on that guilty, cracked quality, and she turns away.

“There was a wolf once,” Toni says, suddenly, her brow furrowing.

Nebula and Gamora look at her, then, unsure of what to say.

“I think it was a wolf. Some of the memories… they’re not there anymore, after…” she sweeps a hand over the length of her. “After all of this. I was… I was kidnapped,” she muses. “I used to get kidnapped a lot when I was younger, and my father had a policy: _we don’t negotiate with terrorists._ ”

Hours ago, days ago, weeks ago, she would have said that with all the bile she could muster, her never-ending daddy issues – hours ago, days ago, weeks ago, she would have wondered if that was the sum of all of her parts, her fucking daddy issues, if everything she has done, will do, wants to do will ever only be in service of Howard fucking Stark, because even though he has been dead longer than she had ever known him, when she closes her eyes, she still sees the disappointment, the anger, the resentment, the fucking sneer on his face, like she was below him, beneath him, unworthy of him, even when she knew it was actually the opposite, even when she knew that she was more, smarter, better, _worthier_ than he could ever be.

Now, when she thinks of Howard Stark, all she sees are the moments leading up to his death. She thinks of him driving that car, laughing at a joke his wife makes, turning to her and seeing her just as beautiful as he saw her the first time he ever met her, her dark hair, now shaded with grey, her dark eyes, her dark skin, and she touches him, her smile turning soft and fond, and they haven’t been like this in years, he thinks, they haven’t, because he’s been chasing for Captain America, and he’s left her alone and he’s left Toni alone and she’s sad, she’s so sad nowadays, and she picks up the wine bottle a little too often, and he’s corrupted her, hasn’t he? He’s poisoned her, turned her from this God-fearing, clever, intelligent, kind woman into this woman that drinks a lot, that has that hazy look in her eyes like she’s not quite seeing everything, that spits vitriol more often than she has a kind word for anyone.

The tires blow out, and the steering wheel spins uncontrollably, and he can’t stop it, and the panic seizes him, and the car hits the tree. His head knocks back from the impact, ringing, and he’s stumbling out of the car, bleeding, the blood is in his eyes, and he’s calling out for his wife, _Maria, Maria, are you okay?_ He lands on the ground, and there’s someone in black looming over him. He begs for the someone to help his wife, she’s still in the car. He squints up, and in the low light of the streetlamp, he sees the face of a man he knows. _Sergeant Barnes_ , he asks and receives a punch to the face.

Sergeant Barnes ( _the Winter Soldier_ ) doesn’t stop, and Howard Stark’s skull fractures, and his brain starts bleeding, and finally, his heart stops. When his heart stops, and he dies, he thinks of his wife and his daughter. The last thing that goes through his mind is _Toni, oh, hell, Toni, I can’t leave her alone._

She has held the ghost-weight of his soul in her belly, in her heart, in her hands. She has seen every inch of his life, everything he could have been.

How could she still hate him after all of that?

She shakes her head. “So, it was often left to me to break myself out, to get away from the guys. They were usually guys. I would wander the area; sometimes, we were in the middle of nowhere, and it was a hike from where they were keeping me to the nearest police station, so I could call Jarvis to come and get me.”

“Jarvis?” Nebula queries.

“He was our butler. I loved Jarvis,” she says, smiling harder now, with teeth, a certain softness in her chest, remembering the man who used to dance with her in the living room to old rock songs. “There was one time. They kept me in this shack, I remember. I was tied to a chair, and my godmother… you know, she realised that my father wasn’t going to do anything about saving me, so she decided to teach me how to get out of the more… common holds, rope and handcuffs and cable zip ties. So, I was tied to a chair, and I think… they’d hit me once or twice to get me into the van, I remember?” she muses. “And when they’d found out that my father wasn’t going to pay them, they’d hit me a couple more times, but I was still conscious, knew what was going on. I got away from them, made my way out of the shack, into this field, and onto the dusky empty roads, and it was right beside this-this forest, you know, and while I’m walking, out stumbles from the woods this wolf. A baby wolf, no older than a pup.”

The pup had been unkempt, tugging at the hem of her jeans, when it had wandered out of the woods, looked up at her with huge, dark eyes and whined, and she’d been lost.

“It was tired and alone and hungry and whining, so I picked it up, wondering if it was going to bite off my fingers. It didn’t, though,” she says, fondly. “It was… it just sort of huddled against me, and I wrapped it up in my jacket and took it home with me. I was a soft touch back then. I managed to get to the nearest police station, where all the officers told me that… that I should just give it up, that the pup would likely die, and that Animal Control would deal with it from there. I didn’t want to, though. I didn’t want to leave it alone. I called Jarvis, and he came to get me. He took one look at the wolf in my arms and he said, _Miss Antonia, I hope you aren’t going to start a new habit of picking up strays_. I just smiled at him and said, _he’s just a baby, J, I can’t leave him_.”

“He loved you, your Jarvis,” Gamora says, softly.

“He did, and he took me home with the wolf. We bought all the things that we’d need to raise him, and he became my pet, I guess. My father hated him, the pup. It always… snarled at him.” Her lip curls at the memory. “He loved Jarvis, though, the pup. Followed him everywhere; Jarvis pretended to be mad, but he loved the scrappy little thing as well. The pup hated Obadiah too, and Ty, hated all the men that laid their hands on me and called it love. He would… he would bark and snap at their fingers, and just rage until they’d go away. It used to piss me off, back then, because I loved Obadiah and I loved Ty and I didn’t realise they were poison yet.” She looks up to meet their eyes defiantly. “Animals are smarter than we are.” She looks away, her gaze turning distant. “And then, one day, I came home, and the pup was gone. Just gone.”

“What happened to him?” Nebula is the one to ask the question.

“My father got rid of him,” Toni replies, almost instantly. “Later on, I found out it was because Obadiah convinced him to; apparently, wolves are a dangerous animal that brown girls shouldn’t have at their hips.” Her mouth twists in displeasure. “I was already… a terrifying prospect to inherit my father’s empire, and a wolf at my beck and call, sitting quietly and obediently at my heels, well, it didn’t help things, as far as they were concerned. That was a lie. They were just certain that one day, my wolf would rip out their throats and they’d die because they’d dreamed of hurting me. They wanted to keep hurting me.”

“What is the point of this story?” Nebula demands, face thinning in frustration.

“I am the wolf,” Toni says to them, plainly. “You are me, and my father and Obadiah are Thanos. He wants me as his pet, because he knows I will incite you to leave him, he knows that I will hurt him for you, because I care about you, I care about your wellbeing, and I know that Thanos is no good for you. I am _leaving_ , and you are both coming with me.”


	13. xiii.

Nebula shakes her head. “I am not-”

Toni shakes her head. “You told me that you didn’t think it would work, our escape plan-”

Nebula folds her arms over her chest. “I still believe that.”

“Now, there is no escape plan; there is just me,” Toni soothes. “I am the soul stone, I am more than he is, I am more powerful than he is. He can’t stop me from leaving, and if you come with me, I promise he can’t stop you from leaving either.”

Nebula’s face grows uncertain, then, and her arms drop to her sides. “I don’t-”

Toni steps forward and curls a hand around Gamora and Nebula’s napes. “I won’t ever let him hurt you again,” she says, fiercely. “Come with me.”

She watches their faces, watches them linger on the dangerous thoughts she’s providing them, watches as the indecision melts away, first in Gamora, and then, in Nebula, and she smiles at them, so kindly.

“You have put up with enough abuse to last a lifetime,” she says, solemnly. “Both of you. He is evil. He will always be evil. One of these days, he will be the death of you. So, come with me, leave with me. Live your life for yourself, not for him.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Gamora is the first to say it, as Toni had expected.

She turns to Nebula.

“I…” Nebula looks away. “I am loyal,” she says, like she doesn’t quite believe her own words.

“You’re loyal to someone who doesn’t deserve your loyalty,” Toni says, flatly. “Someone who has spent most of your life mutilating you for his own benefit and giving you nothing in return.”

“He gave me a home,” Nebula snaps.

“Did he?” Toni asks. “Did he really? He killed your family, stole you while their corpses were still warm, brought you back here to join his collection of orphaned children at his hand, and then, gave you nothing. He didn’t give you love. He didn’t give you affection. He didn’t give you a family. The person you call a sister, you can’t even look her in the eye without getting angry; who did that, Thanos did that? He made you both think that there’s no way you could ever be sisters to each other without fighting, without there being a war, without someone winning and someone having a body part chopped off. That’s not a home.”

“He made me strong,” Nebula says, her voice weaker.

“Did he?” Toni taunts again. “Living a life without love, without trust, without kindness, that’s not being strong. That’s the weakest life you can ever live. He just tried to make you him; I can see it inside you, Nebula, you’re not him. You don’t have it in you to be him. That’s a good thing. That’s not a failure of yours. It means you have seen him, looked at the very pith of him, and some part of you have decided that he was unworthy, that he wasn’t someone to emulate, and you didn’t become like him.”

Nebula just stares at her, like her entire world is dying before her.

“Come with me,” she says, fiercely. “I will keep you safe, both of you safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again, not even Thanos.”

“You can’t-” Nebula says, shaking her head.

“Nebula,” Gamora says, suddenly, sliding forward with grace and taking Nebula’s hands in her own. “Nebula, I know we’ve never been close-”

Nebula chuckles, roughly, voice lined with disgust. “If you even try to-”

“I won’t give you some silly platitude about how we’re family and we love each other and we’re sisters,” Gamora says, coldly. “I won’t, because we’ve never lived that life. We have always fought each other. That was only partially Thanos’ command, and some of it was because I was resented you, I resented you for having the same grief that I did, but you loved him, and I hated you for loving him. I hated you for wanting to please him when he hurt so many people, when he hurt you, when he hurt me. I wanted you to have some pride, and you didn’t. And it made me angry, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not my sister, Nebula. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, and that doesn’t mean I won’t fight to the death for you, and I know, despite our problems, you would do the same for me.”

Nebula peers at her, carefully. “You insulted me, and then you said you loved me,” she says, sceptically.

Toni shrugs. “That’s what love is.”

“I want to leave this place. I want to turn my back on Thanos, and I want to fight against me. I want to be _brave_ , Nebula,” Gamora insists, with a passion that borders on madness, her eyes shining. “And I want you to be brave with me. I want you to fight Thanos and kill him with me. He doesn’t deserve any more of us, all three of us, that he’s already taken already.”

“I hate you,” Nebula tells Gamora, who winces. “I have hated you for a very long time, for many years; that will not change overnight.”

Gamora’s face hollows. “I understand.”

“But despite what you both may think of me, I do not love Thanos,” Nebula says, coldly. “I hate him. I hate him like I have hated nothing else. Do you promise me we will kill him?” she asks, meeting Toni’s eyes.

Toni doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away, doesn’t miss a beat. “I do. He will die at our hands, and no one else’s.”

Nebula’s throat flexes, and finally, she nods. “Fine, let’s leave. I want to see the back of him.”

Toni just smiles with her full, crimson mouth and reaches for their wrists, fingers curling. She closes her eyes, and they melt into the floor.

* * *

“Where are we?” Gamora asks, peering at the desert.

Toni opens her eyes. There’s sand all around them, the sun shining down. She squints into it and tastes blood in her mouth.

“I think this is Earth,” she says, haltingly. “I have… I’ve been here before.”

She looks around, and she sees a different time, she sees herself stumbling across the sun, blistered and bruised and tired, every step a country in itself.

“I was here before,” she says. “This is Afghanistan. This is where… a few years ago, I was kidnapped, and I escaped, and I wandered through this desert, for days, I think, until they found me, until Rhodey found me. I’m sorry,” she lifts her eyes, wide and round as the moon in her face. “I didn’t mean to bring us here. Come.”

She takes their hands again, and they leave the desert, and they’re standing in Xandar.

“This is Xandar,” Nebula says, looking around, her hand leaving Toni’s. “Why are we on Xandar?”

“A man named Peter Quill is bringing the Power Stone here,” Toni says, licking her lips.

Gamora looks at her, sharply. “How do you know this?”

“I just...”

She closes her eyes and she can see him, Peter Quill, she can see his hands and his eyes and his heart, and she can see him hand an orb to another man.

The orb calls to her, sings to her, calls her _sister_ , says _come to me, I have missed you, come home, come home to me, take me inside you, and we will be one again._

She opens her eyes to that urge.

“I can see it,” she says, simply.

“Who is this Peter Quill?” Gamora asks, curiously.

“He’s a Ravager,” Toni replies.

Gamora scrunches up her face. “So, a bottom feeder?” she says, her voice lined with disgust.

Toni sees the two of them tangled together, Gamora and Peter Quill, watches as they fall in love, and smiles her secret smile to herself.

Nebula looks at her, her face solidifying. “Where is he? Where is the power stone?”

Toni peers around the corner of the alley they’d materialised in, and she points at the broker’s shop on the higher level of the city’s square.

“There. That’s who he’s planned on selling it to,” she explains. “The Broker.”

“How did this Ravager get his hands on the power stone?” Nebula snaps, flustered and frustrated in equal measure, eyeing the civilians of Xandar with no small amount of suspicion as they pass by the alley.

“The Broker had commissioned the services of the Ravagers once he found out where the Orb was, on Morag,” Toni tells them. “Quill broke free of his friends and decided to take it for himself-”

Gamora’s lip curls up, sharply. “The man has no honour,” she says, voice thin and taut.

“I suppose that’s a matter of perspective,” Toni muses. “He came into contact with Korath on Morag.”

Nebula’s eyes narrow. “Korath? Korath is here?” she asks, rigidly.

Toni nods. “He was on Morag for Ronan. Ronan also knew where the power stone was; Thanos told him to go and retrieve it for him, and he was going to send the three of us to serve Ronan while he searched for the power stone.”

Gamora grimaces. “I’m guessing that wouldn’t have ended well?”

“Ronan is a pig,” Toni says, full of venom. “He should have his skull split open before he can kill one more person. I will do it myself. He cannot have the power stone,” she looks at Nebula and Gamora, earnestly. “He’ll use to it to destroy the Nova Empire, every man, woman and child that lives within its borders. He’ll decimate whole cities and villages and leave nothing but salt and ash behind so nothing can grow again.”

Gamora takes a deep breath and nods, resolutely.

“Then, we shall stop him. We shall stop him and Thanos, and we will not allow them to continue their trail of violence and blood,” Gamora says, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Nebula snorts. “Speak for yourself.”

Toni closes her eyes. “Nebula,” she groans.

Gamora glares at her sister. “Are you incapable of being a good person for once in your life?”

Nebula smiles with all of her teeth, sharp like swords. “I will be a good person when I have removed Thanos’ head from his shoulders and peeled his eyes from their sockets. That is the service I will do for this universe, but I will not sit here and pretend to be some champion of the citizens of the Nova Empire. I am not that foolish, and I am not that maudlin.”

“No one is asking you to be the champion of the citizens of the Nova Empire, Nebula,” Gamora grinds out.

“I did not run from Thanos to become some hero for the common people,” Nebula growls back.

“Yeah, well, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Toni replies, her voice cutting cleanly through the air.

Nebula and Gamora turn to look at her, the entire force of their gaze on Toni.

“Sorry, it’s an Earth reference,” she says, apologetically. “Look, you have no choice. To get to the power stone will mean an unavoidable conflict with all the morons who are after it, which not only includes Thanos, but also includes Ronan and the Ravagers, on behalf of whomever paid them. So, I don’t think we have a choice?”

“Fine,” Nebula grumbles. “What is our plan?”

“Gamora,” Toni says, suddenly. “Gamora’s pretty and unassuming; she can grab the orb from Quill.”

“What are you trying to say?” Nebula asks, defensively, folding her arms over her chest.

Toni grins, her mouth stretching oddly, as if she’d never smiled before (the orb sings, screams at her, asks her to come home, and she shuts her eye, the eye that no one but her can see, against it). “You are many things, Nebula, but pretty and unassuming are not one of them.”

Nebula’s hands relax, enough that her arms fall to her side, and she makes a face. “I will take your point. The boys always panted after Gamora, anyway.”

If she sounds sullen for it, the loss of that superficial, thin beauty that Toni and Gamora have that turns heads, she doesn’t show it, and it was another thing to fix to Thanos, to make him suffer for, the life she could have led.

“Gamora,” Toni says, lifting an eyebrow.

Gamora’s face sets in resolve. “Give me ten minutes,” she says, confidently.

* * *

Despite what Gamora thinks, they don’t have the power stone in their hands in ten minutes.

Instead, there’s a fight.

Gamora does her best, of course. She does all the right things. She steals a piece of fruit from the tray of a nearby vendor, on her way up the levels of the town square, and she leans up against the wall, just beside the Broker’s shop, when Quill is unsurprisingly and unkindly kicked out, shouting at the closed door of the shop.

When he bothers to notice Gamora, her form against that wall turns lazy, seductive, a perfect curve to her hips, and her eyelashes drag low over her dark yellow eyes, and Quill is interested, immediately angling his body to face her, throwing the orb in the air and catching it with a single hand, cockily.

They exchange a few pleasantries, and just when Quill’s eyes latch onto her throat and breasts, Gamora snatches the orb right out of his hands, kicking him square in the gut and running off in their direction.

Toni almost starts cheering.

But Quill isn’t a simple mark, unfortunately; he doesn’t get used and tossed aside easily; he doesn’t lie there and take it. He fights back. He throws something at Gamora, which flashes bright in the gleam of the sun hanging overhead, ripe as a round peach. It catches Gamora around her legs, twining like rope, and trips her right off her own feet, sending her crashing to the crowd with a grunt.

Nebula’s sword crackles into view, with that high-pitched hum associated with electricity.

“We should come to her aid,” she says, simply.

Toni looks at her in surprise. “You know, in my years of knowing you, I’ve never heard you say that you want to help Gamora with _anything_ ,” she says, dryly.

Nebula huffs. “Yes, well, I am capable of being a good person for once in my life,” she retorts.

Toni shrugs. “No arguments from me.”

They rush forward, just in time for Gamora to roll onto her back, shoving the rope down her calves, and Quill races towards her. She plants her feet on his stomach and shoves him.

Realistically speaking, Quill is no match for the three of them, and they work as one, well-oiled machine, having spent so many years locked in violence together, but suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Gamora shrieks in rage, as a racoon jumps on top of her, knocking her down onto her knees, shouting something at a tall tree that completely blots out the sun with its wooden face.

So, a talking racoon and a sentient tree, then.

Quill uses their temporary distraction to run away, deciding to get the hell out of dodge, especially when the sentient tree decides to wrap its arms, like branches, thin but strong and ever-growing, around her arms and waist and thighs, keeping her trussed up like a turkey, eyes blinking wide, so dark and so big that they look like pools, and a thin, long crevice for a mouth.

Toni reaches out with the eye that no one else can see, those dark, big pupils blooming into her view, the only thing that she can see when her eyes are closed.

She only senses wonder, a child’s innocence, something sweet and thick in her mouth like cotton candy, and when she pulls back, when that third eye closes, the talking racoon is jumping onto her back and winding a claw in her long, dark hair, trying to bear her down to the ground.

She senses hurt, anger, a barbed wire temper, and she knows, she _knows_ that she should show compassion, that she should be kind. Instead, she snarls, and her arms lift over her head, seizing the little racoon by its shoulders and throwing it over her head.

And then, Gamora’s busy ripping herself out of the sentient tree’s hold and throwing a knife at a running, skipping Quill, while Toni aims the clean, sharp edge of her sword against the tree’s throat, her eyes ringed with gold.

“Don’t move,” she warns. “Or I’ll slice you up from ear to ear.” She peers up at the tree. “Do you even have ears?” she asks, curiously.

The tree smiles down at her, so kindly, even if they are fighting each other, and then, just for her sake, wiggles his ears at her, so that she knows that he does, in fact, have ears.

In a different situation, Toni might have laughed.

Nebula now grapples with the racoon, kicking away his giant gun and pulling him into a headlock that practically cuts off his circulation. Gamora picks up the gun that Nebula had forced the racoon to discard and fires a bolt of electricity at his running form. It catches him in the neck, Quill seizes and falls to the floor.

Toni looks down at the orb, absentmindedly rolling back and forth along the cement ground like it’s a mere piece of jewellery and not containing a terrifying alien object that could devastate entire planets with the single thought of its holder.

 _Sister, sister? You have come home to me, sister. I have waited for so long. Take me, take me inside of you, let us be one,_ it sings and sings, its voice like a high, thin screech against her temple.

Before she knows what’s doing, she’s reaching down, fingers curling to take it in hand.

A gold net then covers all of them, shimmering and ridged, and then, the sun is blotting out, covered completely by the bulk of a spaceship hovering right above them, from which the gold net spits out.

“By the authority of the Nova Corps, you are under arrest for endangerment to life and the destruction of property,” a voice intones in a bold, loud sound, echoing right across the square.

Toni exchanges a look with Gamora and Nebula, as arresting officers drop down from the spaceship and put them in handcuffs.

“This… really wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” she sighs, but lets them take her.

* * *

They’re led into this little room, one by one, where they’re forced to stand in front of a glass window, while people on the other side take their mug shot and process their imprisonment.

“Where are we going?” Toni mutters to Gamora.

“The Kyln,” Gamora replies, her mouth in a thin, hard line.

“That sounds terrifying,” Toni sighs.

“Oh, don’t…” Gamora makes a soft, frustrated noise at the back of her throat. “Don’t even talk to me right now.”

Toni reels back, affronted. “Excuse me?”

“You could get us out of this situation,” Nebula points out, bringing up the rear. “All you would have to do is your strange melting thing, and we could leave this infernal place.”

“Okay, firstly, no one in the twenty-first century uses the word _infernal_ ,” Toni declares. “And secondly, if I did that, not saying that I can just do it on command like that and controlled, well, then, everyone would know that I could do that, wouldn’t they?”

“And that would be a bad thing?” Nebula asks, suspiciously. “The universe knowing that you are not to be trifled with?”

“I will be even more trifled with than I was before people find out I’m the soul stone,” Toni says, loftily.

“I guess most of the Nova Corps want to uphold the laws,” the racoon begins, on their way through the prison. “But these ones here, they're corrupt and cruel.”

He waggles his eyebrows at Quill in particular, trying to make him afraid and concerned for what faces him on the other side.

She nudges Gamora in the side. “At least he’s not making dropping the soap jokes.”

Gamora frowns. “Dropping the soap jokes?”

“It’s used as a euphemism on my planet to jokingly refer to a phenomenon whereby men bend over in prison during showers to pick up the soap when they’ve dropped it and are promptly raped by another inmate,” Toni says, coldly.

Gamora’s face twists in displeasure. “What is wrong with the people on your planet?” she asks, disgusted.

“It’s the men, the men,” Toni corrects.

“You have known good men,” Gamora reminds her. “You have spoken about them at length: your Jarvis, your Rhodey, the man named Happy.”

“I’ve known good men,” she agrees. “I’ve known terrible men too. Sadly, sometimes, all I can focus on is the terrible men.”

Gamora reaches down between their bodies and tangles their fingers together, squeezing.

 _Sister, sister, sister_ , the orb sings from somewhere. _You have left me again sister. Come back to me, come back to me. I am alone again, you left me alone, you left me, YOU LEFT ME, YOU LEFT ME._

Her head pounds.

“But, hey, that's not my problem,” the racoon goes on, with all the smug certainty of a cat. “I ain't gonna be here long. I've escaped 22 prisons; this one's no different. You're lucky the broads showed up,” he flicks a thumb back at the Gamora, Nebula and Toni bringing up the rear of their little arrested band. “because otherwise, me and Groot would be collecting that bounty right now, and you'd be getting drawn and quartered by Yondu and those Ravagers.”

“See,” Nebula points out. “Distasteful.”

Toni rolls her eyes.

Quill just snorts. “I’ve had a lot of folks try to kill me over the years,” he tells the racoon, arrogantly. “I ain't about to be brought down by a tree and a talking raccoon.”

The racoon frowns. “What’s a racoon?”

“You’re a racoon,” Toni interjects before Quill can reply.

Quill just looks at her, for a moment, helplessly. “Wait, you know what a racoon is?” he asks, sceptically.

“I’m from Earth too, dipshit,” Toni says, rolling her eyes.

“You’re from Earth?” Quill asks, his voice growing high and thin.

“I’m from Earth,” Toni says, almost coy in her efforts.

“Hey!” the racoon shouts, drawing their attention back to him. “There ain’t no thing like me, except me, got it?”

“So,” Quill says, ignoring the racoon. “This orb has a real shiny blue suitcase, Ark of the Covenant, Maltese Falcon sort of vibe. What is it?”

“Oh, my God, he’s a Harrison Ford fanboy; of _course_ he’s a Harrison Ford fanboy,” Toni mutters.

“Hey, Harrison Ford is awesome-”

“You are such a dudebro,” Toni says, scathingly. “Clearly, Mark Hamill is the only Star Wars actor worth stanning.”

“Are you kidding me? That whiny little-”

“Oh, I’m sorry, does he threaten your little culture of toxic masculinity?” Toni taunts.

“What the… did you just say… what the fuck is toxic masculinity?” Quill demands, peering at her like she’s a crazy person.

“I am Groot.”

Toni looks up at the tree. “You are Groot,” she says, heavily. “Hi, Groot, I’m Toni.”

“I am Groot.”

_Hello, Toni, I’m very happy to meet you._

Toni lifts her eyebrow. “Are you sure about that? ‘Cause this doesn’t seem like the most fun place to have an introduction to someone,” she says, dryly.

Groot shrugs. “I am Groot.”

_It could be worse._

“Touché,” Toni points at him.

“What’s the Orb?” Quill asks Gamora.

Gamora sneers. “I have no words for an honourless thief.”

The racoon scoffs, his voice faintly lined with disgust. “Pretty high and mighty coming from the lackey of a genocidal maniac.”

Toni and Nebula both hiss.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Toni says, coldly, her voice sharp and ringing. “I suggest you don’t talk about things that are above your pay grade.”

“Oh, please,” the racoon snorts. “We all know who you are. Anyone who's anyone knows _who_ you people are.”

“Yeah,” Quill blusters. “We know who you are.” He turns to Groot. “Who is she?”

“I am Groot,” Groot replies.

“Yeah,” Quill replies, rolling his eyes. “You said that.”

“We weren’t retrieving the orb for Ronan,” Nebula grinds out, fixing the other three with a terrifying look. “We were betraying him. We were going to use the orb to kill Thanos _and_ Ronan.”

“I am Groot,” Groot interjects.

_How will the orb kill Ronan and Thanos?_

Quill snorts. “Well, that’s just as fascinating as the first eighty-nine times you told that.” He leans down to the racoon, whispering conspiratorially. “What is wrong with Giving Tree, here?”

The racoon sighs. “Well, he don’t know talking good like me and you. So, his vocabulistics is limited to ‘I’ and ‘am’ and ‘Groot’. Exclusively, in that order.”

Quill runs his eyes over Groot’s impressive height, almost lazy and condescending and coming up unimpressed. “I tell you what, that’s gonna wear real thin, real fast.”

They pass by an outpost for the prison guards, where they can see buckets and buckets full of their possessions, their clothes and their weapons and even Toni’s hair tie, before they were forced into these orange jumpsuits. One of the guards inspecting the possessions has an out-of-date pair of Walkman headphones over his head.

Quill shouts, “Hey, put that away!”

He walks inside the room without a care in the world towards the guard as the door closes.

“Hey! Listen to me, you big, blue bastard, take those headphones off, that's mine. Those belong to impound, but that tape and that player is mine!”

The guard gives him a bored look and slams the flat end of his stun baton into the fleshy part of Quill’s gut.

He goes down like a bag of stone, head cracking onto the floor and drool spilling out of his mouth, as he seizes.

The guard hits him again with the stun baton, and something in Toni twists, as if she should help him, her hand stretching out, and then something else pulls her back, claws her back from that edge, cages that sad little instinct, and she goes on, without a second thought to Peter Quill.

* * *

Toni sits in her cell.

There’s a bare, shabby cot pressed up against the wall, just big enough for her, but coupled with a lumpy mattress and a thin, filthy pillow.

She has her legs crossed, ankles tucked underneath her, and her back is pressed against the stone wall, and her eyes are closed.

The third eye opens, and she melts through the floor.

“What the fuck?”

She opens her eyes, and there’s a man standing above her.

He has dark hair, thick and windswept as if natural, with dark eyes and dark skin like hers. His lips are full and pink, and there’s a sharp-cut beard around his mouth, a Van Dyke, she realises, and he’s shorter, shorter than most men she’s known, but still taller than her, built strong but lithe, instead of a bodybuilder.

And then, there’s a gauntlet forming on his arm, from his wrist, a watch there, red like blood and old good, and the repulsor whirring, that bright-hot light pointed right between her eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?” he snarls, like a lion raging, black and frightful in his chest.

“Who…” she licks her lips. “Who are you?”

“Lady, you just came out of my floor. I think I’m the one who has the right be getting answers over here,” he says, his voice sharp, like flinders.

“I’m…” she hesitates, brow knitting together. She lifts her eyes. “My name is Antonia Margaret Stark. You can call me Toni.”

He mouths the syllables to himself and shakes his head. “That’s not possible,” he declares. “Either you’re some illegitimate sister of mine that Howard never told me about, or this is some fucking con. What do you want, money? The armour?” he asks, the words turning sharp towards the edges at the end.

“No, I’m actually Antonia Margaret Stark,” Toni replies, slowly. “I’m you, I’m just from another universe.”

The repulsor dies down, but he doesn’t pull back the gauntlet. “That’s not possible,” he repeats, his mouth a wobbly line.

“Do you believe in parallel universes?” Toni asks, wearily.

“Of course,” he says, immediately.

“Then, why is this so hard for you to believe?” Toni lifts an eyebrow.

“Because you came out of my floor. Like you just… you phased right through,” he says, waving at her half-wild.

“Oh, well, yeah, that’s because I’m the soul stone,” she explains, blinking wide and slow at him.

He pauses, rolling his shoulders back to cut through the shuddering stillness in the air. “What the fuck is the soul stone?” he asks, flatly.

Toni shrugs. “Have you had interaction with the Tesseract or Loki’s sceptre?” she pushes.

Something in his face crumples. “Yes,” he clears his throat. “I have.”

“The Tesseract is the space stone, the sceptre the mind stone. Two of six infinity stones, I am the third,” Toni says, dark and full of promise. “Six singularities, focal points of the universe, manifested as six stones of untamed, unimaginable power. Space, time, soul, mind, power and reality.”

“And, what, you’re one of these six singularities in human form?” he asks, sceptically.

Toni flashes a grin at him. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve only known about this for a few days at the most. It’s as new to me as it is to you.”

“You’re a magical stone in human form that looks like a girl version of me that appeared from a parallel universe by melting up through the floor. I think you have a head-start,” he says, rubbing his temples.

“I am a girl version of you,” Toni tells him. “Does that bother you?”

“No,” he sighs. “I mean, you’re hot, which is really all that I thought about when Rule 63’ing myself. And I’m guessing you’re a genius too?”

Toni shrugs. “Built a circuit board from scratch when I was four,” she tells him.

“Me too,” he tells her.

“I didn’t get your name, actually,” Toni says, tangling her fingers together in her lap.

“Oh, Anthony,” he answers. “Anthony Edward Stark. Tony, for short.”

She blinks. “Oh,” she says, lamely.

“Yeah,” he blows out a breath between his teeth. “Oh.” He licks his lips. “So, Margaret, as in…”

“Peggy Carter,” she fills in the blanks. “Edward, as in…”

A smile curves along his soft mouth, surrounded by that sharp goatee. “Jarvis.”

Toni huffs a laugh. She would’ve liked that, being named for Jarvis.


	14. xiv.

“Mind helping me up of the floor?” Toni asks, stretching out a hand.

“Of course,” Tony replies, taking her hand.

His muscle flexes, and he pulls her right off the ground until she’s standing on her two feet.

“I was in a prison cell in space, and now, I’m in a parallel universe talking to a male version of myself,” Toni sighs. “Wow, I have the craziest life.”

“You’re telling me, sister,” Tony says, face twisting.

“Where are we, anyway?” Toni asks, looking around. “This isn’t the Tower.”

“No, it’s the Compound. The Tower… uh, it’s not in great times, to say the least,” Tony says, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

“What’s the Compound?” Toni asks, curiously.

He stares at her. “You don’t know what the Compound is?” he asks, hesitating for an agonising moment.

Toni shrugs. “Dude, I took a nuke through a wormhole through space and got myself kidnapped by a giant, purple, genocidal maniac who decided that I was his soulmate, cut off my entire torso because I was ‘deficient’, and made me strong enough so that I could use my newfound strength to help him murder planets. I have not been back to Earth since 2012.”

Toni braces herself for pity, but instead she gets a look from Tony, the look as if something fisted between his ribs had undone itself.

“You never came back through the wormhole,” he says, after a moment, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“What?” Toni says, confused.

She reaches out with her eyes, the eyes that no one can see, the hundred, the thousand, the million she has, but she doesn’t see anything.

She only sees dark, the dark, something that is not meant for her.

“Strange,” she says, biting her lower lip.

“What’s strange?” Tony asks, brow creased in concern.

Toni shakes her head. _I can’t see you_. “It’s nothing.” _Maybe it’s because we’re the same person._ “Anyway, yes, I didn’t come back through the wormhole. I’m guessing you did?”

Tony nods, warily.

“Tell me,” she urges, her voice a gentle tenor, like a mother might speak to her child.

She presses a hand to her flat belly, a belly that will always stay flat – she will never bear a living child, the holder of souls, the life of lives does not bear children, only holds them, cares for them, shields them, and ends them, if she wants it as such.

In other worlds, she had children: boys and girls aplenty, and she wants some in this world, she wants them in every world, little boys and little girls to sit in her lap, to curl against her breast, so she could sing and read and tell them about machines and robots and artificial intelligence.

Not in this world, though.

In this world, she is a dried-up husk, meant for the souls of everyone else, to carry their ghost-weight inside her until she can shed them all and the world ends.

“I don’t even know who you are,” he says, weakly.

Toni reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together. His hands are larger than hers, his fingers longer, thicker, but the same shade.

“We are the same,” she says, her voice a murmur. “We have the same heart, the same mind, the same teeth and the same gut.” She leans forward, barely an inch from him; she can taste his cologne, the mouthwash on his tongue. “We are the same.”

“You are… very,” he takes a deep, shuddering breath that rattles in his lungs. “Complicated,” he finishes.

“I am the most uncomplicated person you will ever know,” she corrects, staring up at him through her eyelashes.

He’s taller than her, in this male form.

“Tell me, I’m interested,” she purrs, leading him to a nearby couch in the middle of the Compound’s large, airy lounge, so they can sit down.

“Only if you tell me in turn,” Tony says, breathlessly.

Toni smiles, greedily. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know after you’ve told me everything I want to know.”

Tony sighs. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“You came out of the wormhole,” she pushes once more.

Tony nods. “I did. I mean, I lost power, after letting the nuke go. I don’t really remember much of what happened. I lost consciousness, fell through, and the next thing I know, I’m on the ground, the Hulk is standing on top of me and roaring, and I find out that I did fall back through, before Romanoff closed it on me, and the Hulk seized me from mid-air to bring me down to the ground.”

Toni offers a half-smile. “I did always like the Big Guy,” she muses.

Tony returns that smile with one of his own, fond. “He’s a good egg.”

“What happened then?” she asks, curiously.

“The Avengers went their separate ways,” Tony hums.

“Really?” Toni asks, dubiously. “Fury let that happen, let everyone leave his manipulative hold?”

Tony shrugs. “He didn’t really have a choice. Banner stayed with me in Stark Tower. Romanoff and Barton went back to SHIELD – they were never going to be anything more than spies, really.”

Toni detects a note of bitterness, the sour way that the words come out, but decides to broach the subject at a later date.

“Thor took Loki back to Asgard. And Rogers…” he blows out a breath between his teeth, his face contorting with a strange blend of grief and terrible, terrible fury. “Well, Rogers decided to go on a road trip to find himself.”

“A road trip, really?” Toni says, face scrunching up.

“A road trip,” Tony agrees. “But then, he came back and immediately joined SHIELD.”

“Of course he did,” Toni mutters, having never moved on from the Helicarrier.

“And then, a couple months after Loki, there were a serious of terrorist attacks, strange ones. No one could identify the device, no bomb casings, the government was completely in the cold.”

“But you weren’t, I’m guessing,” Toni says, slyly.

Tony gives her a half-smile. “How did you ever guess?”

“It was a feeling, like the Force,” Toni murmurs, looking up at him through her fine, dark eyelashes.

“You’re a Star Wars fan,” Tony says, approvingly.

Toni laughs. “I’m you, I’m not that different. And I would do Obi-Wan Kenobi so easily, the prequel version,” she says, wistfully.

“As in Ewan McGregor,” Tony sighs. “If only I were a couple of years younger.”

Toni leans in and pokes him in the cheek. “How old are you anyway?”

Tony bats away her hand, but it’s not with aggression, more with fondness, and his lips quirk up at the corners. “I’m forty-seven.”

“Forty-seven,” she muses.

“How old are-”

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “I was forty-two when I went in through that wormhole, and I spent so much time with him and then I got away from him and I don’t know how many years have passed by on Earth. JARVIS, he’s told me some things about what happened, but not enough that I can really put a date-”

“JARVIS,” Tony says, quietly.

Toni looks at him, curiously. “You don’t have a JARVIS?”

“I _had_ a JARVIS,” he explains, clearing his throat and looking away.

This Tony Stark, he shows his emotions on his face, so clear, so obvious, just for the people he cares about, and now, when he looks away, when he doesn’t want to look her in the eye, she thinks, _someone’s hurt you, you’re hurt, and now you’re too scared to look me in the eye because you think I’ll hurt you too._

Toni reaches for his jaw, her fingers curling around the muscle and turning him to face her.

“Is he gone?” she asks, in a small voice, maybe even a child’s voice.

Losing JARVIS might destroy her.

She can feel him at the edge of her vision, the Iron Woman armour that she keeps hidden in the void, only for her, only for her touch, and she reaches for it, cuts through the binds of this universe and hers and finds the void, the cold, dark void, like space, and her hand closes around the helm, solid and uncompromising, and she pulls it through, pulls it through the seams and binds of two universes and a whole, empty void until she can place it on her lap.

“Holy shit,” Tony says, staring dumbfounded at the Iron Woman helmet that she seats in her lap. “Where did you… where did you get that from? How did you just-”

“Like I said, soul stone,” Toni says, her tone absent.

“That’s your… that’s your armour, then,” he says, pointing at the helmet.

“He took the one I had on me, and I took it back, and I, sort of, upgraded it with alien tech? I had access to a lot of alien tech,” she explains.

“Can I?” Tony makes a motion for the helmet.

Toni hands it over without protest where she would have easily fought had it been someone else.

But Tony touches it as if it were made of starlight, the awe and disbelief cutting sharp lines across his handsome face, thumbs brushing each plate of metal.

“This isn’t like mine, like it’s not the same metal,” Tony muses. “Different colours too.”

Toni shrugs. “I’m not the same woman that climbed through that wormhole,” she says, solemnly. “I had to change the armour to match the person I’d become.”

Tony lifts his eyes, sees the sharpness that looms behind her eyes, the things shining across her face that she doesn’t want to name, doesn’t want to talk about, and he nods, with a deep, steadying breath.

He nods, because he understands, because they have the same heart and the same mind and the same soul.

Toni takes the helmet back from him, presses her forehead against the forehead of the armour.

“JARVIS?” she asks.

“Yes, Miss Antonia?” he asks, promptly, a shrill mechanical edge to his voice through the helmet.

When she looks over, Tony’s face is absolutely distraught, like she’d sliced open his adorable little puppy from ear to ear and gouged out his eyes.

“He died,” Tony says, dully. “He died, a couple of years ago.”

Toni’s lip quivers at the thought, grief sinking into her belly. “Is this part of the story?”

Tony huffs out a laugh that doesn’t sound like much of a laugh. “It is part of the story. Do you want me to go on?”

“Yeah, I want to know more,” she says, breathlessly. “I want to know everything.”

_Knowledge is all I have now._

“Where was I up to?” Tony muses. “Oh, right, the terrorist attacks. So, yeah, the government wasn’t able to deal with the attacks, they couldn’t figure out who was behind it. It was AIM, Advanced Idea Mechanics, led by a guy named Aldrich Killian, who made this… this serum, I suppose, a virus, called Extremis, that turned people into walking firecrackers, especially if the virus became unstable inside their bodies. That’s why no one could ID the bomb that was being used at the scene, because it was fucking people,” he says, disgusted. “He was using defective subjects for his dragon virus to blow up city centres and malls and shit.”

“Aldrich Killian,” she muses. “I feel like I know that name from somewhere.”

“You have met the man, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS replies, always available for clarification.

“Have I?” Toni blinks.

“Yes, you attended a New Year’s Eve party in Bern, Switzerland in 1999. Mr Killian cornered you in an elevator, to request investment in his think tank called Advanced Idea Mechanics. You reported to me after the fact that you felt harassed and concerned for your safety, because he had, in your words, a very shifty look in his eyes, and he was very grabby. So, you told him to meet you on the building’s roof to discuss the matter further, but of course, you never turned up for the meeting,” JARVIS explains.

“Huh,” Tony says.

“What?” Toni asks.

“Funnily enough, that’s exactly how I would report my interaction with Killian in 1999. He _was_ harassing me, he _was_ very shifty, he _was_ grabby, and he just kept trying to enter my space. Plus, there was really hot brunette that I was planning on spending New Year’s Eve with, and he was ruining that,” Tony waves off.

“Maya Hansen,” JARVIS says, promptly.

Toni leans forward. “Did I sleep with her too?”

“I believe so, Miss Antonia, from Mr Hogan’s security report.”

“Huh,” Toni says. “We clearly have very similar tastes in people we fuck.”

Tony shrugs. “Well, according to you, we _are_ the same person.”

Toni’s gaze thins. “Do you only sleep with women?” she asks, curiously.

“I sleep with _everyone_ ,” Tony corrects.

“Me too,” Toni sighs. “At least we have that in common. So, what does our mutual creepy stalker have to do with terrorist attacks.”

“Oh, well, Extremis was made by Maya Hansen. She got into a figurative bed with Killian, who then used Extremis to get rid of his disabilities. And then, he started using them on ex-military with disabilities, amputated limbs and the link. The problem is that it wasn’t stable on everyone. The ones that Extremis didn’t set in stable, he would send out for terrorist attacks. He hired an actor to pretend to be this guy called the Mandarin, who was taking credit for the terrorist attacks. Oh, and he also went to college with Pepper, and he had a serious crush on her.”

Toni scowls. “He didn’t hurt her, did he?” she asks, with a dangerous edge to her voice.

“She’s fine now,” Tony reassures. “He came to Stark Industries, hoping to make a deal with her, some sort of alliance.”

“Why Pepper?” Toni asks, confused. “I mean, she’s only COO.”

Tony pauses. “She’s only COO in your world?”

“Yeah,” Toni says, cautiously.

“Who’s CEO?”

“I am,” Toni says, defensively.

Tony holds up his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean anything. It’s just… you didn’t give up the company when you were dying from palladium poisoning?”

“No,” Toni says, carefully. “I mean, I made it such that when I kicked the bucket, Pepper would be appointed as CEO, but I made her COO, and I stayed on as CEO. Did _you_ step down as CEO for Pepper?”

“I did, but I’m still CTO and Head of R&D. Why didn’t you give up the CEO position?”

“Because I’m a woman,” Toni shrugs.

“That… doesn’t really answer my question?” Tony says, unsure.

“Okay, look, Howard Stark was a douchebag, right?” Toni says, without needing a following up. “I’m guessing he shipped you off to boarding school the first chance he got, spent most of his life in the fucking ice looking Captain America, hated the fact that you were smarter than him, even as a kid, could never deal with his own mediocrity especially compared to his infant, always had a drink in his hand, was a mean drunk too, the kind that peeled you up until nothing was left but what he’d put into your head? _Starks are made of iron_ ,” she mocks in a pale copy of Howard’s voice.

“I got _Stark men are made of iron_ ,” Tony says, quietly.

“Exactly, see, first difference. I got a Dad who encouraged all possibility of toxic masculinity while denying me any chance to live up to his absurd expectations,” Toni says, dryly. “When my Howard caught me in the bathhouse with Meredith McCall when I was fourteen, he said I was a stupid dyke, not just because I was a dyke, but because I was stupid enough to get caught. I played _demure girl_ for him, for years, the girl you’d want to marry, a real fucking Betty Cooper, all pastels and plaid skirts and pantyhose and peplum and paisley shawls and pearls, lots of pearls. Hair, in a neat ponytail. My heels were always stylish, practical, never a hooker’s height, modest. I went to the opera and the ballet, tasteful art shows, went to tea with the daughters of magnates, just like my father.”

Tony just stares at her, horrified, as if realising how much worse off his life might have been had he been born without his penis and a vagina in place of it.

Toni clears her throat, her head pounding. “You got any liquor around here? The hard staff?” she asks, a smile flitting across her face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony says, his tone absent, a myriad of expressions working across his face, as he walks over to the cabinet and pulls out a cool decanter of bourbon, pouring for them a generous helping in two glasses. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” she says and downs the whole glass in an artless swig. She hiccups. “I have a feeling this won’t work on me anymore anyway.”

“Too fucking bad,” Tony mutters, taking a slow, artless swig of his bourbon himself.

“Howard was a fucking creep, and he hated that I was a girl, but then, he also thought I needed to be protected because I was a girl, so it was all very confusing, to me and to him. He used to say, _don’t cry, Antonia, Starks are made of iron_ , and then, he also used to say, _comic books aren’t for girls, go and play with your dolls_ , and then, he would tell me that _you have to work twice as hard_ -”

“- _to get half of what they have_ ,” Tony finishes for her, face twisting.

“Oh, okay, so that wasn’t a chick thing, that was a Howard Stark’s spawn thing,” Toni guesses.

“No, I think that was a brown thing,” Tony muses. “Or a Howard Stark’s brown, genius, part-Persian Jew thing?”

“I think you may have hit the nail on the head,” Toni says, running a hand through her hair.

“God, what a fucking bastard,” Tony says, tipping his head back.

“But I suppose he gave me some good things. He taught me to be strong, he taught me that if I’m weak, people will kill me. I won’t forget that when I was nineteen and, in the hospital, because my boyfriend beat the shit out of me, Howard came, he came and he said, _he’s not going to bother you ever again, Toni, I’ll take care of it_. I loved him, when he died,” she realises. “I loved him terribly, even if he was often a dick to me.”

“I loved him too when he died,” Tony says, quietly. “I loved him too. I loved him so much even when he treated me like I wasn’t worth his time, even when he shouted at me, and threw things, and got drunk and hurt my feelings, hurt Amma’s feelings, like I was some unwanted, unfortunate leftover. I was always so afraid of what he’d say, what he’d do. And then, I realised, and it took me so long to realise it, that he was such a terrible person and father to me because he knew I was better than him, I was always better than him, the whole time, and he couldn’t take it, he just couldn’t take it. I loved him, when he died, because I realised what he’d been the whole time; he wasn’t the monster in my nightmares. He was a sad man who couldn’t deal with the fact that his child was better than him.”

Toni cracks a smile. “That sums up Howard Stark in a nutshell.”

“When did you stop wearing the… you know, the pastels and pearls?”

Toni laughs. “Around sixteen or so, and then, I came home with a gold ring through my ear and hot pink and electric blue in my hair, miniskirts and leather and high, hooker heels. I’d smell like cheap beer and sex and engine oil, and he went apoplectic. I loved it.”

Tony smiles. “I’m glad,” he says, honestly.

“So, yeah, that’s… that’s why I didn’t make Pepper CEO immediately,” Toni muses. “Because I’d already had to put up with him, who didn’t believe I could do it. And then, there was Stane, fucking Stane, who pretended to be on by side and then, groped my tits when he was trying to kill me. I had to… I got no respect when I first started as CEO. They hated me, the Board, too preoccupied with the fact that I was missing a penis and I wasn’t my father. I spent years, two decades pretty much, sitting at a conference table with old, white, homophobic men who either looked down on me for being pansexual and Indian and not my father, even though I made Stark Industries into something that he could never have managed, or they thought they could bend me over the table and fuck me because apparently _I’m_ free for use, ‘cause I’m one of _those_ girls, who likes it rough and who likes it a lot. I put up with that for _years_ , the board members, the press, the fucking US military, the American public, who said that a girl, especially a girl like me with an appetite, shouldn’t be the head of a weapons’ manufacturing company. So, yeah, I wasn’t willing to give it up, not until I was cold, and they were burning my body.” She looks up, something black and frightful curling in her chest. She offers him a smile so he won’t see what’s happening underneath. “So, what happened after Killian came to Pepper?”

“Happy followed them after they left, thought he was dodgy. And then, he got blown up for it-”

Toni bites her lip, the emotion welling up in her throat like a floodgate. “Yeah, I think that happened in my universe too. I don’t-” she swallows. “He was okay, right? He got better? He didn’t-”

_He didn’t die, please tell me he didn’t die._

“He didn’t die,” Tony reassures her, taking her hand in his larger ones, tangling their fingers together, squeezing.

It curls warmth in her that she didn’t even think was possible.

She’s been so hot, so hot ever since Brio touched her; she didn’t think warm could do anything to her anymore, an understatement compared to the fire, the flames, the dragon beating in her chest.

She feels so warm, with his hand holding hers.

“He got better, he woke up, but he got blown up and I got angry,” he says, his lower lip quivering. “I told the press, I challenged the Mandarin, whoever the fuck he was, gave him my address and told him to come at me.”

“A real power move,” she teases, as light as she can make her voice.

Tony huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I can see how you could say that. Pepper wasn’t too pleased, and then, she really wasn’t pleased when Maya Hansen dropped on my doorstep.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “Let me guess, she got pregnant after the night you spent together, and she wanted child support?”

“Thank fuck, it wasn’t,” he says, dragging a hand over his face. “She wanted to tell me about Killian and about how she thought he was the Mandarin. And then, the Mandarin blew up my house, and I fell into the ocean, and everyone thought I was dead. Pepper thought I was dead, but I ended up in Tennessee, and there was this kid… this really lordly kid who gave me so much shit.” He chuckles. “And then, I went to fight the Mandarin. I saved Air Force One, and twelve people falling out of a jet, and then, I got kidnapped by the Mandarin, who was Killian, who then tortured me by showing me a hologram of Pepper getting injected by Extremis and crying out for me. And then, I fought him. I didn’t kill him, though, that was Pepper, after I thought she was dead because she fell two hundred feet into a vat of fire, and she killed him. She was so good, she saved us. And it was Christmas.”

“That sounds nice, she’s okay, right?” she says, in a low, rushed voice, like she can’t breathe.

She remembers Pepper, she remembers Pepper just as she remembers Rhodey and Happy and Sharon and Aunt Peggy, and she remembers that she loves Pepper just as much. There are five people in this universe and in all of the universes that she loved from her previous life as Antonia Stark, Iron Woman, and not Antonia Stark, Thanos’ Black Bride, and Pepper is one of them, and she can’t breathe, she can’t touch the fire until she knows that Pepper is okay, she’s safe and happy and alive in every universe, not just hers.

“She’s fine, we got to her in time, removed Extremis,” Tony soothes. “She’s good. She’s still CEO, still kicking ass.”

“Are you two together?” she asks, curiously.

She wonders if it was the same between Tony and Pepper, as it was between Toni and Rhodey, if they felt the need to perform compulsory heterosexuality with each other and then, they realised that what they had was so much more, was so much better than just bodies and meat and sex and orgasms – what they were, _are_ is soulmates, she and Rhodey.

They have been since the first time they met, and that handsome black boy smiling even after their professor gives him one hell of a lecture about sleeping in class, tells her he wants to hang out with her, he wants to be her friend, and they become friends. And they sleep together, because they do perform heterosexuality together, and it might be the best sex she’s ever had, it’s never awkward, but they wake up in bed together, and they both realise in the same instant, that they could do better, do more with each other. He’s there, he’s always there, he’s there when Ty puts her in the hospital and he’s crawling into the cot beside her and holding her while she cries and finally admits to the world that Tiberius Stone doesn’t love her, he hates her instead. He’s there when her parents die, and a part of her burns with their corpses. He’s there when she’s CEO of a multi-million-dollar weapon’s company, and she turns it into a multi- _billion_ -dollar company that does everything, because she can. He’s there in the desert, catching her as she falls; he’s there when her palladium invades her body like a disease and starts to kill her; he’s _always_ there.

Rhodey is more than a lover, a friend, a companion; he’s the other half of Toni, even when she’s like this, even when she’s more fire and life than she is meat.

She wonders if it’s like that for Tony and Pepper.

“No, we’re not.” Tony’s smile turns sad at the edges. “There was a time when… _maybe_? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. She… she doesn’t really like the fact that I’m Iron Man. She doesn’t like that I put myself in danger, fly out to my possible death, become friends with people who don’t deserve me. She has a lot of opinions, Pepper, and she’s not afraid to voice them. She… she and I weren’t meant to be like that, at least in this world.”

“Not in my world, either,” Toni offers. “I mean, I’m equal opportunity, and Pepper is beautiful, one of the most beautiful women in the world, but I could never touch her, could never let… _me_ … touch her. That would be-”

“Unfair,” he finishes with a knowing look. “To her, and to us. It would be unfair. I understand.”

“I’m glad she’s okay,” Toni says, her voice thin and taut. “I think she’s okay in my world too. At least, that’s what JARVIS told me. I haven’t seen them, Rhodey or Pepper or Sharon or Happy or Aunt Peggy, I haven’t seen them in years.”

Tony nods, a well of emotion behind those dark eyes of his, and he holds her hand, so unbearably soft, thumb dragging back and forth. “I understand. I mean… the longest I went without seeing them, worrying for them, was three months. I can’t imagine it being years,” he says, honestly.

Toni flashes a strained smile at him. “It’s not easy. But I still have people to look after, who need me. So, I’ll deal. I’ll deal for them. What happened after Killian?” she asks, without pausing.

Tony shrugs. “Life went on. I went on. And then, SHIELD was fucking HYDRA, wasn’t it? And there were fucking Helicarriers dropping into the Potomac and Rogers getting into a fucking grudge match with an assassin on a highway,” he says, with so much bile, so much sourness in his throat that even Toni is taken aback, when she knows that feeling, that emotion so well, like a creature comfort. “And then, we were hunting HYDRA, more specifically, the sceptre, which HYDRA stole. And then, there were these twins: Wanda and Pietro Maximoff helping HYDRA to kill me and the Avengers, but most importantly, me.”

“Why did they have a rage hard-on for you?” Toni asks, curiously.

“They said that I killed their parents,” Tony says, bluntly.

Toni just arches an eyebrow.

“Apparently, there was a bomb that fell onto their apartment building. The shell said _Stark Industries_ ,” Tony explains and taps with his fingers the centre of his sternum.

There’s no sound, except for the sound made from finger on solid bone.

“No arc reactor?” she says, gesturing to his chest.

Tony shakes his head, the look in his eyes wistful. “I had it for a while. After Killian, well, we were able to use Extremis to get the shrapnel out, regrow heart muscle and lung tissue and my sternum. Painful recovery,” he tells her, whistling. “I see that you don’t have it either.”

“This person that I’ve been with, the one who kidnapped me, he chopped off my entire torso because he thought the arc reactor made me defective,” Toni says, flatly.

The colour leaches out of Tony’s face.

“Oh,” he says, lamely.

“So, yeah, no arc reactor, and now, with my new body, no arc reactor, no shrapnel, no breathing problems, no chest pain. I don’t even have a heartbeat,” she says, almost proudly.

Her heart has always been her weakness.

“Really?” Tony says, his voice hushed.

She reaches for his hand, dragging it to her chest, between her breasts, flattens his palm there.

“Oh,” he says, when the realisation dawns.

His hand lingers there, and the fire burns bright in her belly.

And then, he drops it back to his lap, as if that fire had burned him.


	15. xv.

“So, you were saying about this Wanda and Pietro Maximoff?” she coaxes.

“Yeah, so HYDRA experimented on them; they were willing, of course,” Tony sighs. “The sceptre gave them powers.”

Toni’s immediately intrigued. “Oh?”

“Yeah, he… he got super speed, and she, well, she can do a lot of things, including telekinesis, telepathy, putting visions in your head, creating shields, blasts of red magic, it’s all very complicated,” he says, like there’s a bad taste in his mouth at the mere mention of his woman.

“She did something to you,” she guesses.

Tony sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “When we were in the HYDRA base, looking for the sceptre, I found it in this little dungeon. One minute I’m staring at the sceptre in this abandoned room with all these tables and books and shit, and then, I’m turning around to see the Chitauri leviathan open that giant jaw full of teeth and swallow me whole,” he tells her, his voice carefully neutral, drawing the words out like he’s afraid they might bite him back. “And then, I’m on a rock, and the Avengers are there, all of them, dead, and Rogers, he grabs my hand – he isn’t dead yet, and he tells me, he tells me that I could’ve saved them, and then, I’m back in that room, and the sceptre is right there and I grab it.”

The fire grows hot, spreads down to her fingers and toes, and she closes her eyes, and she sees her, this Wanda Maximoff, with her red hair and her green eyes and the way she looks up at Steve Rogers through her eyelashes, and plays the demure girl, the little girl, the girl that men have to protect and shield.

She sees her hatred, her envy, her grief, and her hunger, her desire for something normal and sweet; she sees the way the girl looks at the Avengers, sees the fire in her, more like blood than Toni’s gold, sees the touch of her brother on her, her blue brother, the one that had touched her before she knew everything and saw her heart and mind and waited for her.

“I can see her,” she says, vaguely, the words rumbling to life in her chest. “In my world at least, I don’t like her.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “The feeling is mutual, in my universe too,” he says, dryly, lighting up with slight mirth. His face shutters off. “We took the sceptre back, and I thought… _no more, no more of this,_ and then, Ultron.”

“Ultron?”

The very name makes something in her gut curdle.

“There was an AI in the sceptre-”

_No, not the sceptre, the mind stone, there was an AI in the mind stone._

“We tried to apply it to my Iron Legion protocol-”

“Iron Legion?” she asks, the name not ringing any bells.

Tony sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “During the whole Mandarin shit, I got a little obsessive making suits? I went on and on and on, and finally, I couldn’t scrap them all, so I wrote code; they became a guard of sorts. We’d use them to protect the public in cities that we went to. No confrontation, no touching, nothing of the sort. We thought we could use Ultron and the Iron Legion to… become a global defence force, I suppose. The next time that aliens came-”

“-what if they couldn’t get past the bouncer?” she asks with an arched eyebrow.

“Exactly, _exactly_!” Tony says, something savage shining in his face, like he didn’t think there was ever someone like her in this world, or in any world, who gets him, gets him like they share the same heart. “I just-”

“You wanted peace. You wanted to stop, and you wanted to be smarter about how you stopped,” Toni guesses.

“I have seen what we look like from up there,” Tony says, solemn and strained. “We are small and cold and so very vulnerable. I wanted peace in our time. I wanted peace,” he says, with a painful little smile that makes her chest hurt. “They were all dead, and it was all my fault. I couldn’t stop it, so I had to try and stop it.”

“And it didn’t work?” Toni says, almost afraid.

“Ultron came alive on his own. I wasn’t expecting that. It was Ultron, my Ultron. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was the… the mind stone, whatever was in it. It decided that the only way to protect humanity was to destroy it, and it… _he killed JARVIS_ ,” he says, the words slicing right through him, swiftly and mercilessly. “He just… he killed JARVIS. It was rage… it wasn’t even confusion, it was…” He shakes his head, like he’s willing the image away. “You should have seen his code. He looked like… he looked like he’d been savaged.”

The emotion comes back, the grief more than anything for a JARVIS that isn’t hers but is still hers, swelling inside her like a black eye.

“I tried my best,” Tony says, wringing his hands together. “I really did,” he says, almost pleading, begging for her to see the truth in his eyes. “I looked at JARVIS, all of his objectivity and his innocence and his kindness, and I thought of another AI, leading in defence of the Earth, and why would we need Avengers, huh? What would be their use, if Earth had defenders like JARVIS, all as strong and unwavering as Iron Man, but with none of Tony Stark’s sin or flaw. That’s what I want. It didn’t work, and instead, they hated me for it. They really fucking hated me for it. Hell, Thor even choked me for it.”

Toni is dull with shock, her palms hurting, and when she pulls them back, there are red, half-moon gouges littering her palms. “Oh.”

“No one said anything to me, of course,” he scoffs, his voice lined with disgust. “No one defended me. They all thought it was justified, after what I’d done, even though I hadn’t done anything, and Bruce had been there right with me through it all, and a board of my peers, who knew a hell of a lot more about artificial intelligence than a bunch of fucking secret agents ever could, decided that I hadn’t done anything.”

Toni can practically taste the bile that coats her counterpart’s tongue.

“But we stopped him, Ultron. The Tower was destroyed in the first battle, and then, there was a second battle on a warship, and Johannesburg was fucked, and the third was Sokovia, and I am still paying for that today,” Tony muses, his mouth a thin, tense line.

“I’m sorry,” she offers, but it’s a hollow apology.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault. You aren’t… Well, I hope that it’s better off in your universe,” he says, resigned and offering the smallest of smiles.

“Well, you know, JARVIS tells me bits and pieces, but he’s struggling more and more to get me accurate details. We aren’t really near Earth, you know, so… his abilities to access the Stark Industries satellites… he’s struggling,” she says, lamely.

“I understand,” Tony says, quietly, looking so miserable, so browbeaten. “I could keep going, if you’d like, if you really are interested in hearing about my shitty life.”

“Please.”

“Well, after Sokovia, I stepped down from the Avengers,” he tells her. “It was better for all of us if I didn’t show my face too much. They didn’t really trust me after Ultron, and well, Wanda, she joined the Avengers-”

“Wait, she helped HYDRA, and we all agreed to let her join the Avengers?” Toni asks, sceptically.

“Don’t even get me started,” he says, his voice thin with derision. “Wanda and I, well, I told you about our complicated backstory, so, she wasn’t exactly comfortable in the early days with me being around, so I stepped back. Built this place, overhauled the warehouse that was previously here, turned into a compound for the Avengers and whatever was left of SHIELD after HYDRA burned it up. And then, we had the Accords.”

“Why does that send shivers down my spine the moment you say it?” she asks with a grimace.

“Well, it started in Lagos. The Avengers… well, not really the Avengers, it was Rogers, Romanoff, Sam Wilson and Wanda, they went to Lagos, looking for Brock Rumlow, who was an ex-HYDRA agent. They got into a scuff-up in the middle of a fucking market and blew up an entire building. Thirteen aid workers from Wakanda died, and the world wanted blood. So, they came up with the idea of the Sokovia Accords. They were a way of… reorganising the Avengers. After the Accords were ratified and implemented as domestic law, the Avengers would operate as a UN body, independent of any nation, under the control of a panel. Before we could go and address a situation, we would need the okay from the panel.”

“I’m guessing not everyone liked that. In fact, even with my limited experience with the Avengers in my universe, I know exactly who would have objected to the Accords,” she says, dryly.

“Rogers,” Tony says, so hateful, so venomous that it surprises Toni.

She remembers the rage, the resentment, the disgust that had welled up in her body at the way Steve Rogers had treated her on that Helicarrier, and she knew that they had attempted to figure things out between them before she took the nuke up into the wormhole, but Steve Rogers was a special type of demon in her life, even if she didn’t know him, the real him, particularly well.

“Rogers, he decided that the Accords were too much, that he didn’t like the idea of the UN controlling us, turning us into a private task force.”

“He does know that the UN doesn’t work like that, right?” Toni says, slowly.

“I have no fucking idea,” Tony says, with a snort. “And frankly, I don’t give a fuck. He was convinced the Accords were a shitty idea, and he made that very clear, he made it very that he wasn’t going to sign them. Except, things sort of got waylaid, because Aunt Peggy passed away.”

“What?” Toni says, breathlessly, anxiety clamping around her body like a vise. “What?”

Tony closes his eyes, his jaw like stone. “She… she was old, so old at that stage-”

“It’s only 2017, isn’t it?” Toni snaps. “That’s only five years older than she is the last time I saw her, which would make her… oh, God, she’s ninety-seven. How did she…?” she closes her eyes. “Oh, God, it was time for it to happen, wasn’t it? How…? Did you… did you go to the funeral?”

Tony nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I stayed at the back. I didn’t want people to notice me.”

“Why not?” Toni asks, warily.

“She was Steve Rogers’ great love.” His mouth twists in displeasure. “How could I possibly overstep and make her funeral about me?”

“That’s… the dumbest thing I’ve ever fucking _heard_ ,” Toni explodes. “For fuck’s sake, they knew each other for like… what, five years, max? She was our godmother for forty-seven _years_. We were like her kids. She raised us like we were her own. Hell, I’m Sharon’s godmother, for fuck’s sake. That’s not… that’s not… _fuck_ Steve Rogers. Who the hell… did he-” The rage burns through her, hot and fast. “Did he tell you that? Did he _make_ you feel unwelcome? Where is he? Where-”

“Woah,” Tony says, grabbig her hand and pulling her back donw to the couch before she vaults off in search of Rogers and throttles him with her bare hands. “It’s okay. I was there. I made it there. I watched. It wasn’t about him.” He licks his lips, as if carefully choosing his words. “He didn’t get to make it about him.” He looks away for a moment, getting his composure under control. “It was a very nice service. I was a pallbearer, for what it’s worth. Sharon spoke the eulogy, and I gave a speech as well. It was a good service. I hope…” he takes a deep breath. “I hope she’s at peace. That’s all I ever wanted for her.”

Toni doesn’t want to ever think about a universe where Peggy Carter is dead, so she deliberately ignores that part.

“So, what happened with the Accords?”

“The UN facility in Vienna blew up. They got it on surveillance that it was the Winter Soldier, so Rogers and Wilson went hunting for him, went all the way to Bucharest for him. The German special forces went after him as well, and they got into a fucking grudge match in the middle of the city, trashed roads and tunnels, until they were finally apprehended, all of them. Rhodey was the one to bring him in. We took them to Berlin, to the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre, and I offered to pay for Barnes to be rehabilitated at a top facility by the best psychologists and psychiatrists specialising in brainwashing and torture and conditioning. Rogers was about to take it, and then, I mentioned that I’d inadvertently put Wanda on house arrest.”

“You put Wanda on house arrest?” Toni says, sceptically, not quite judging but heading towards crossing that line very quickly.

Tony sends her a withering look that shuts her up rapidly.

“Whether or not she did it on purpose, she blew up a building and killed thirteen people, aid workers from Wakanda, who were angry, really fucking angry. The media was writing a smear campaign against her, in particular, not just the Avengers as a whole. There were protests in the streets against her. I was afraid for her, and I was afraid of her, and that was the only way to keep her safe and keep everyone else safe from her. She has a temper, and she has a way of… strangely believing that she’s in the right, a trick she learned at Rogers’ knee, so yeah, I put her on house arrest. It wasn’t even house arrest, for fuck’s safe. I asked someone she trusted to pass on the message that it wouldn’t be a good idea if she left. She was staying _here_. You’ve been in captivity; is this captivity?” he demands, throwing his arms around.

“Yeah, but… even in a place like this, captivity is captivity, _but_ I mean, not to throw judgment on the decisions you made, if she was responsible directly or indirectly for the deaths of thirteen people, it was probably a good idea to keep her on the down-low,” Toni muses.

“Thank you! Well, Rogers took one look at me and decided that I was nothing more than a cockroach. And then, there was some gut masquerading as a psychologist that went down to speak to Barnes, gave him some code words that turned him into a brainwashed assassin. Barnes attacked everyone in the fucking centre, trying to get out, and Rogers and Wilson followed him. They broke out Wanda from my tender captivity by destroying half the Compound in the process, and we got into grudge match in Leipzig Airport. That…” Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh, that did not end well. Rhodey-”

The words die on his tongue.

Fear curls in Toni’s chest, even if it isn’t _her_ Rhodey.

“What happened?” she asks, quietly.

“His systems were shorted out, he fell, and he landed hard on the ground. He… he can’t walk anymore,” Tony says, breathlessly, his voice pained.

“Oh,” Toni says, something in her withering like defeat, going fear-flooded and limp. “He’s okay, right? He’s okay? He’s not-”

Her voice is just shy of hysterical.

“No, he’s fine. He’s alive, and I managed to make some prosthetics so he can walk. He hasn’t got back into the armour yet, but…” Tony shrugs, his eyes over-bright. “Maybe one day,” he says, helplessly and hopelessly.

Toni’s hand tightens around his.

“I’m glad he’s okay,” she tells him, swallowing hard. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my Rhodey, or if he was hurt and I couldn’t-”

She’d tried so hard not to think about it, not to think about what was going on back home while she was in space, trying desperately to plot and ploy until Thanos was dead and she could be free, really free.

But sometimes, in the depths of a dream, she imagines returning, returning back to a home that might not be her home anymore. She imagines seeing all of them again: Rhodey and Pepper and Sharon and Happy and Aunt Peggy, but it’s not the same. Maybe, they’re dead; maybe, they’re hurt, and it was all her fault, because she wasn’t there; maybe, they’ve forgotten her; maybe, they’ve moved on without her; maybe, they’ve made lives and families without her, and there is no place for her anymore.

Maybe, she is extraneous.

Maybe, she let them down.

 _No, no,_ she closes her eyes. _No, you’ll go home, and you’ll see all of them again, and it will be like you weren’t gone at all._

She looks down at her hands, her hands which are on fire now, and she thinks, with the acid rush of self-loathing, _who would want me like this?_

“Rogers and Barnes got away in the skirmish,” Tony says, seeing the way the colour is leached out of her face. “The others didn’t; they gave themselves up so that Rogers and Barnes could get away. Such loyalty,” he mocks. “They were put in the Raft, a prison that was built under the ocean to keep… enhanced criminals under lockdown.”

“Makes sense,” Toni muses. “I mean, the things you see nowadays, where do we put them, if they can just… shatter handcuffs and demolish buildings? We need to put them somewhere.”

Tony nods, stoically. “They didn’t like it, of course. They didn’t like it all, but I finally got Wilson to tell me where Rogers and Barnes was going. I followed them there, Siberia, this HYDRA base, and well, the fake psychiatrist was there. It turns out he was SOkovian Special Forces; he lost his family in Sokovia and he blamed the Avengers, so he wanted to destroy us; not just destroy us but-”

“Salt the earth so nothing ever grows back again?” Toni geusses.

“Quite,” Tony says, dryly. “And then,” his hands fold in his lap, held so tight together that his knuckles are white. “There was a video,” he says, his voice black and ominous.

“A video,” Toni repeats, in the exact same tone, as best as she can replicate it.

“My parents… they didn’t die in a car crash.” Tony lifts his chin, defiance in every tilt. “They were murdered, by the Winter Soldier, by Bucky Barnes.”

The words sour her like curdled milk, and for a moment, she doesn’t know how to process what he’s saying.

“That’s what the video was for. It was the surveillance footage from the traffic camera that night,” Tony goes on, no inflection to his voice at all, dull and insistent. “He shot out their tyres, they went off the road and crashed into a tree. Dad, he stumbled out, Mom was trapped. And then, he got off his bike and went and smashed Dad’s face in until his brain was mush. And then, he went around the car and choked Mom to death with his real hand. She just… she just _struggled_.”

Toni’s sick to her gut, but she doesn’t say anything.

“The video stopped, and I almost charged at Barnes, but Rogers stopped me, and then, I realised, he hadn’t said a word through the whole thing, didn’t even look surprised. I asked him if he’d known about it, and he lied, the first time around, I could see it,” Tony says, his voice disgusted, so full of scorn. “And then, I asked him again, and he finally told the truth. He told me, _yes, I knew_ , and I hit him, and then, I went after Barnes, and I just… I just wanted them-”

“Dead?” Toni wonders out loud.

“No, no, I don’t think I wanted them dead,” Tony muses, his brow knitted together in misery. “I don’t… I don’t think I would’ve killed them,” he says, in the way that someone cannot imagine themselves being a killer.

Toni can imagine herself being a killer. She is a killer; she’s glad to be a killer.

“I would’ve,” she says, simply.

Tony peers at her, curiously.

“I probably would’ve killed them,” she says, honestly. “So, clearly, you’re a much better person than I am.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he says, like he knows her.

_Bless him._

“I would’ve,” she corrects. “You and me, Tony, we’ve led very similar, yet very different lives. He hurt my parents, and look, I didn’t like Howard, we didn’t get along most of the time, but I was in the hospital once, broken and beaten to hell, my jaw wired shut, and I was crying in Rhodey’s arms, because it was the boy I loved who put me in there, and when Howard saw me like that, in that bed, he got so angry; I’ve never seen him so angry, even with me,” she says, wistfully. “and he said, he said, _you’ll never have to worry about him again, Toni_. It doesn’t make up for the years of neglect and child abuse, of course, but… it was something. And Amma?” Her jaw locks. “I don’t care. I would kill anyone who hurt her. I would… every time, he left and she was so sad, and sometimes, I would hear her cry, and I would hate Howard even more. I don’t think I even hated him so much because of what he did to me; I hated him so much because of what he did to _her_. I would’ve killed everyone and anyone for her. So, yeah, you’re a much better person than I am, because I haven’t seen that video, I only know what you’re telling me, and I want them dead: Rogers and Barnes, I want them dead.”

“To be fair,” Tony says, quietly, and his mouth twists like he doesn’t even want to be saying this. “It wasn’t Barnes’ fault. He was brainwashed and tortured by HYDRA.”

“Fine.” Toni shrugs. “Just Rogers, then. He knew, the fucking self-righteous bastard,” she says with no small amount of distaste. “and he didn’t tell you, right?”

Tony shakes his head, his face at the edge of crumpling.

“You were in love with him, weren’t you?” Toni guesses.

Tony looks at her, his face shining with surprise. “What?”

“You were in love with him,” she repeats, her voice steady.

“How do you… _no_ , no, I didn’t,” Tony says, blinking hard and wide. “I didn’t.”

Toni doesn’t say anything to that, just watches, just waits.

“He _lied_ to me!” he shouts, clambering to his feet, towering over her, breathing like he can’t get enough air into his lungs. “He _lied_!”

“I know,” she says, simply.

“He just…” The colour leaches out of his face, leaving all that is hard and ugly behind in its wake. “He just watched, you know,” he says, dully. “He just watched as I watched, for those few minutes, while the video was playing. No look on his face, in his eyes. Nothing, just nothing. He watched, like I was some… freak show in a museum. And then, the video stopped, and the first thing he did, the first movement he made, was to _stop_ me, stop me from hurting Barnes, because that’s what mattered to him, after everything. It wasn’t that my world was blowing up, falling apart the seams; it was because he was afraid that I would hurt Barnes, and he loves Barnes too much to see him hurt. It wasn’t… it wasn’t Barnes I was angry with in that bunker, it was _him_. It was him, because… he used to look at me like I was everything he wanted in this world, and he… he just ruined me, just like that. _Two fucking years_ ,” he spits out like he has dirt in his mouth. “He knew about my parents and Barnes for two fucking years, and he didn’t say anything, so all those late nights where we talked and we ate and we drank and where I thought something, _something_ was building, it was… what was it?” he asks her, helplessly, like she has the answers. “What was that supposed to be? Was it… was it honest, did he mean it? Or was it to throw me off? To keep me out of sight, out of mind, so in _love_ with him that I wouldn’t realise what was going on behind my back, and when I did find out, I would be so in love with him that I wouldn’t hurt Barnes? Was it a lie, or was it the truth?”

He shakes with hot, liquid anger and uncertainty, right down to his fingers and toes.

“I have driven myself mad, thinking all of it over. I can’t figure it out,” he tells her, his voice rasping. “I just can’t. He lied to me for years. He… he made me think we had a chance, he made me fall in love with him, and then, he pulled the rug out from underneath me, and it was so easy, so easy for him to do that. Did he ever care about me? Did he ever love me? Was I just fooling myself? Did I do it again, did I fall for someone who would hurt me so easily?”

Toni’s throat flexes in sympathy, as he rages, rages in a way that makes her think that he hasn’t allowed himself to rage since it all fell apart around him.

“We fought in the bunker, all of us. I know I started it, but they just went to town on me,” Tony chuckles, roughly. “I could hold my own with them, with the armour, but I was mindful that I wasn’t interested in killing Rogers, just Barnes. And even then…” he trails off, vaguely. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to Barnes if I got him alone. But then, Rogers got the upper hand, he got me on the ground, and he just started pummelling me with the shield, my _father’s_ shield, and it cracked open my helmet, and he was on top of me, with the shield raised, and he brought it down, and I was so sure-”

His hands are shaking, Toni realises. His hands are shaking.

“I was so sure that he was going to bring it down on my head, he was going to kill me,” he says, dazed and aching. “He was going to kill me. But he brought it down on my reactor instead. I don’t know if that’s worse.”

He laughs, a hollow sound that makes Toni’s teeth hurt.

“I don’t know if that’s worse,” he repeats, his voice quieter in its stillness. “I know, I know that I had the reactor removed from my body, but…”

“There’s a lot of trauma surrounded in it still,” Toni murmurs.

Tony nods, absently. “Yeah. I told him, you know,” he says, suddenly.

Toni’s brow furrows.

“I told him about Stane, what he did to me in my Malibu house,” he says, so hateful and so venomous. “And he was so angry for me, so angry on my behalf. He said… he told me no one would do that to me again, no one would _hurt_ me like that again, and he still…” he clears his throat. “He still did that. He knew what the reactor meant, and he still did that. I needed it for a while after I got back. It turns out that slamming a vibranium shield down on metal plating that you wear on your chest makes your already semi-artificial chest cavity slowly break down. So, I had the arc reactor again, stomached the weakness again, and then a few days, Extremis was working so I could remove it. So, Rogers did that too. He gave me one last gift.”

He worries his teeth on his lip.

“So, short answer is yes, yes, I did love him,” he says and drinks the rest of the glass.

* * *

They talk some more about what he’s been doing since then, since Siberia, since the Avengers ended with a bag and not a whimper. He tells her about Peter, with that golden swell of pride shining all over his handsome face. He tells her about selling the Tower, moving permanently to the Compound, and how he’s thought about buying this little cabin by a lake in upstate New York as well.

And then, the conversation turns to her.

“You know, I just realised, I spilled my guts to you,” he says, casually. “All the things that I’ve never told anyone before, and I was incredibly emotional-”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she says, blithely.

Tony offers her a thin smile in reply. “And I don’t know much about you. I mean, I know bits and pieces of your childhood, which was eerily similar to mine but with particular differences where gender is concerned, but I don’t know much else, especially what happened…” he trails off, hesitating for an agonising moment.

“What happened after I took the nuke into the wormhole,” she finishes for him. “Oh, well, I took it through, blew up the Chitauri mothership, and well, I saw it. I saw so many things. I don’t even know what I saw. And then, I fell unconscious. I was in pain, a lot of pain, there were hands in my chest, and I thought they were going to try and take the arc reactor from me, but then, it stopped, the pain, the sensation, all of it stopped. I saw every one of them, you know. I saw Amma and I saw Ana and Peggy and Pepper and Sharon, and they were screaming at me, screaming my name, and then, I saw her. She was like…” her bro wfurrows, and she licks at her lips. “She was like half human, half corpse? Easily one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She told me to… to earn my names, and then, she kissed me, and then, I started screaming.”

“Who was she?” Tony asks, carefully, his expression morphing into something of a mix of confusion and pain.

“I don’t know,” Toni says, smiling sadly. “I don’t. I woke up, and I thought… I thought…”

“It’s just like Afghanistan,” Tony says, quietly. “Waking up on a cot in the middle of nowhere and not knowing what they did to you.”

“Exactly. They cut my entire torso off,” she says, her hands clenching and unclenchinga round air on her thighs. “All of it, up to my neck and down to my west. They left my arms. But it was replaced with this… this prosthetic, I guess, made in black, like scales. I didn’t even have enough time to deal with it all, because then, the door opened and this alien walked in. He was really, really tall, and his skin was this bluish-purple, like a bruise, and he looked down his nose at me almost immediately-”

“-which you hated,” Tony says, with that gleam in his eyes like it makes her think that he knows her better than anyone has ever known her.

“Exactly,” Toni says with a roll of her eyes. “He took me to his leader.”

“I’m guessing this is where the story really begins,” Tony says, dryly.

“Thanos,” Toni says, folding her hands in her lap, lips frowning-thin at the mention of the name. “You probably have one of your own in this universe. So, his name is Thanos. You should know that.”

“Thanos,” Tony repeats, wrapping his tongue around the name, something bleak and hard in his eyes, a pinched, thin look to his face. “So, that’s who… when Wanda showed me a vision, I saw the Chitauri returning, I thought…” he closes his eyes. “Is Thanos the one who sent Loki?” he asks, his bright eyes enormous in his handsome, hard-cut face. “I need to… please, I need to know,” he begs. “I have seen him for… for six years. All I’ve seen is him. When I close my eyes, I see him. When I dream, I see him. At the edges of my vision, I see him. Please, I just need to know,” his throat works. “I need to know that I’m not crazy, that there is something to be afraid of, that there is something- _someone_ coming for us.”

“There is,” Toni agrees. “and his name is Thanos. He… he’s big, he has purple skin, he’s about twice my height, I suppose, bigger than Thor, wider than him too. He’s built like a fucking mack truck, and that’s not me exaggerating. He has red eyes. Um… he has followers, you should probably know that. He calls them his children, actual… like they’re actually called the Children of Thanos or the Black Order, if they want to be especially terrifying. There’s… five of them, technically. Six, originally. Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Black Dwarf and Ebony Maw, they’re the Black Order. And then, there’s Gamora and Nebula, his daughters, his right-hand women, I suppose. Or they were, at least. Proxima… she’s terrifying, uh, she has this spear, it was created from a sun trapped in distorted space-time, acting and operating as a star, supernova, and black hole at once-”

Tony is almost instantly intrigued, listening to her as if he were a fanatic.

“It never misses its mark, and it has this lethal toxin, which injects when it come sinto contact with someon. Uh, Ebony Maw, he’s like a wizard. He can do a lot of things like telekinesis and teleportation, things like that. Glaive is super strong, but he has this spear that can split atoms, so it cut through virtually anything. I would even say that he could chop up the Hulk if it came down to it. Black Dwarf… well, he’s dead in my universe, I killed him, but he’s just a really strong dick. He’s like their version of the Hulk.”

“FRIDAY, you taking notes?” Tony calls out.

“Yes, boss,” FRIDAY says, promptly.

“And there are sisters, right?” Tony pushes.

“Two, Gamora and Nebula. In my universe, we all left Thanos. They’re… look, they’re all victims. They won’t see it like that. Gamora might, if she’s anything like my Gamora. Um… basically, Thanos went to their planets, killed their whole race and kidnapped them to raise as his children. Gamora remembers it really well and she’s always resented Thanos for it, hated him for it, but Nebula… Nebula struggles,” Toni says, wringing her hands together, like a mother might when discussing her children. “She’s not a bad person,” she rushes to say. “She just… well, frankly, it’s Stockholm Syndrome.”

“You’re very protective over them,” Tony decides, after a long, laden moment.

“I am,” Toni agrees, almost immediately – there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. “They… well, I haven’t had much these last few years, but I’ve had them.”

Her nails dig half-moons into her palm.


	16. xvi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: referencing the events that have happened until this chapter, so mindful of the existing warnings, implied/referenced domestic violence.

“So, he took you to his leader?”

“Thanos,” Toni says, nodding. “The first time I met him, there was an alien on the ground and he was begging for mercy, crying, sobbing, no dignity at all. Thanos was on a throne, just watching, just waiting. And one of his Black Order just chopped the guy’s head off. And then, Ebony Maw… he said, he said, _hear me, and rejoice, you stand in the presence of the Great Titan, Thanos, son of A’lars, be honoured, you gaze upon a god_.”

Tony scrunches up his face in disgust. “Thinks pretty highly of himself, doesn’t he?”

“Man, you don’t know the half of it,” Toni says, dryly. “Thanos, though, he just smiled at me, and he said, _Titankiller, Godkiller, Mother of Monsters, Antonia Margaret Stark_. I don’t even know… I _didn’t_ even know how he knew what my name was,” she says, the dread in her belly growing heavy and cold at the memory. “I was scared, even if I tried to hide it. I was really scared. He was terrifying. He didn’t even have to say much, he just had to look at me with those red eyes, and I…” her throat flexes. “I was scared.”

Tony’s hand clenches hard around hers, and she feels that spark of warmth that ripples right through her body.

“He gets up from this throne, walks down to me, and touches my cheek and he tells me that he’s seen me, and I’ve seen him. And I had, just like you have.” Her lip quivers. Her eyes are bright and enormous. “We’ve seen him. And he admitted that he was the one to send Loki, to arm him with the sceptre. And then, he told me about the infinity stones. He told me that the mind stone, the stone in the sceptre, spoke to him of me. I am no ordinary woman, no ordinary human, no ordinary being.”

“He called you Titankiller,” Tony says, his throat flexing. “And he calls himself the Great Titan. Doesn’t that mean that you’re going to kill him one day?”

“I will,” Toni says, with flat certainty in his voice. “It’s what I intend to do, it’s what I intended to do when I saw him that first time, recognising him, and it’s what I intend to do to him now, knowing everything he’s done to me in the time being. He didn’t like it when I pointed that out to him.” She smiles a little. “He took me… he took me to his rooms. I effectively became his prisoner, but he didn’t like it when I looked at it as captivity. Uh… he ordered Nebula to teach me how to fight, with a sword. Apparently, I fought like a human and that made me weak. So, I trained. I got closer to Nebula as we trained, but only as close as we could become. She’s… the prickly sort, to say the least. She doesn’t exactly invite closeness.”

“Neither do you, if you’re anything like me,” Tony points out, almost amused.

“Yeah, it was like a match made in heaven,” Toni says, slyly. “And then, Thanos, he took me to this big window in his spaceship, where you could see… where you could see it all, all of space, and it was… you know, it terrified me too, when I took the nuke through the wormhole, but when I saw it like that, I wasn’t scared. I was just… in awe,” she muses, her heart in her mouth, her eyes edged with a sheen of tears. “I just watched, and then, he told me what his plan was. Or rather, he _showed_ me,” she says, with a dark finish to her voice.

“I’m almost scared to ask what he showed you,” he says, quietly.

“He took me to a planet, Rajak. His followers gathered up all the people, split them in two, and then, killed half the planet, just like that, without reservation, without discrimination, herded them in two pens and blew up one of the pens,” Toni says, thin and taut, dragging her hand over her face.

Tony looks utterly repulsed, his face scrunched up, drawn in disgust.

She doesn’t see him, not really; she sees the girl who died at her feet, she sees Thanos’ hand on her shoulder, and her stomach rebels against itself.

“There was a girl.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes.

“She was fighting them, Thanos’ soldiers, she was fighting them, hitting them, punching them, whatever she could, and I tried to intervene, I tried to make them leave her alone, _I tried_ , but Thanos brought me back. He said… he said it was mercy, that it was an honourable death, that it was necessary,” she says, with no small amount of disgust. “And then, he made me watch as the little girl was killed. That was the moment that made me realise that I had to kill him. I had to… I had to do it for that little girl.”

She takes a deep, steadying breath.

“Gamora… she tried to comfort me, after what I saw, and she tried to give me some useless platitude, and I didn’t… I wasn’t very nice to her,” she says, lamely. “I’m not often nice to people.”

“Neither am I,” Tony agrees.

“Thanos spoke to me afterwards. He was explaining himself. I called it genocide. He said… he said it wasn’t about a planet, a skin colour, a religion, a way of life, a gender, anything like that. He said that it was mercy, because the universe was dying slowly, due to overpopulation. There was no way to stop the people from breeding, so the only way to save the universe from internal destruction was to kill half of everything, half of each planet, each race. He said… if he doesn’t make this choice now, someone will have to make a worse decision tomorrow. So, that’s his big plan, his great objective: he wants to collect all the infinity stones and use them to kill half the universe, in a single instant, in one great swoop. The universe is saved just like that.”

“Oh, my God,” he moans, burying his face in his hands.

“You should know…” she hesitates for an agonising moment. “You should know that _your_ Thanos, if he’s anything like mine, he’ll do it here, too.”

Tony’s face crumples so quickly and so painfully, dragging a hand over his face. “Oh, fucking hell,” he rasps, his voice like dragging stone.

“I know,” Toni says, quietly.

“So, it’s Thanos that I’ve been seeing this whole time, that I’ve been thinking about and dreaming about and seeing in my head, every time I close my eyes,” Tony says, his mouth moving wordlessly.

“If I have to hazard a guess, I’d say so,” Toni agrees.

“I want to talk about this,” Tony tells her, his expression morphing from one of grief and horror to one of resolve. “I want to help you, and I want you to help me, but I need to hear your story first. I need to know what happened to you, if there’s anything in your story that can help us. I hope…” he pauses. “I hope you don’t think I’m pushing you. I’m not a total dick; I know you’ve been through a lot, and don’t think I don’t see that or appreciate it. I just… I want to know, so I can understand better,” he says, honestly, without an edge to his voice or gaze. “I just want to understand.”

“Okay,” Toni says, quietly. “I should warn you, if I haven’t already, but it’s not a pretty story. There’s a lot of… well, a lot of things happen, I can tell you that.”

“I know,” Tony says, blinking slow and wide, in that thoughtlessly easy way that Toni hadn’t felt in a long time. “I want to be there for you.”

“Okay.” Toni licks her lips. “We kept training, Nebula and me. I injured her once… one thing you should probably know about Nebula, in case you have one of your own here, she… Thanos is a sadistic bastard,” she says, her voice thinning with bitterness. “He… he used to make Gamora and Nebula fight when they were younger, and whenever Nebula would lose, which was every time, because… Gamora, well, Gamora’s nicer than her sister, but she’s bene holding a lot of rage and resentment against Thanos for a long time, and she used that against Nebula more often than not. So, Gamora won every time, and Thanos would cut off a body part and replace it with something cybernetic. So… she wasn’t all flesh when I met her. She was more metal that flesh.”

She runs her nails over her collarbone, remembering the time when she would have come into contact with scaled metal instead of skin and bone underneath.

“I sympathised,” she says, dryly.

“I’m hating him even more as you speak,” Tony offers, his eyes bleak and hard.

She wonders how it must be to hear all of this, to worry after your own world, to fear that it will happen to those you love – Toni has sadly become so desensitised to half the things she says now that she won’t ever get that back, the knot in her belly, the sensation where she knows she has to touch something but her hand won’t reach out far enough.

“I injured her, and her arm stopped working. So, I fixed it. We had a… well, let’s just say we had a healthy respect for one another after that,” Toni goes on, flashing a smile at her, strained and sudden and brittle. “He called me _my love_ ,” she says, before she loses her nerve. “Thanos, he called me _my love_.”

It takes Tony the barest hint of a second before he’s understanding what she’s getting at, and his face is twisting in this sweet blend of rage and sorrow and utter, bitter disgust.

“Did he…” Tony bites his lip, unsure of how to ask. “Did he hurt you?”

“He didn’t hit me,” Toni muses. “I think he was a little afraid of the fact that he was twice my size in all the dimensions, so one good backhand might have actually lobbed my whole head off my shoulders. He used to pull my hair a lot. And he did rape me, multiple times. He didn’t think it was rape, though. He thought… he used to say that we were meant for each other, that this was a natural culmination of everything we were meant to be for one another. So, yeah, he saw it as _making love_ , and I saw it as rape.”

Tony is pale and taut in his rage, and his hands are shaking, shaking like he’s imagining wringing Thanos by the neck right here, right now.

It’s strange, they don’t even know each other, but she feels like she knows him better than she’s ever known anyone, and she thinks he feels the same way about her.

“It happened almost every night for a long time,” she tells him. “He never… well, I told you about the dimensions. If he’d used his cock on me, I’d have probably died. My insides would’ve been a mess. So, usually it was fingers. Sometimes, it was a tongue. More often than not, it was about me. He didn’t really expect me to pleasure him or anything, which I was glad for, but… he liked to rub off on me, sometimes. Sometimes, he liked it when I used my hand on him. But yeah, he raped me. He raped me a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, lowly, helplessly, like he doesn’t know what to say in this situation.

Toni tilts her head. “Just wondering, do you have a Tiberius Stone in this universe?”

Tony’s face is hard and sickly grey as stone. “We do.”

Right now, with only her second-hand opinion to push him along, Tiberius Stone is her Thanos. In most of the ways, the terrible rage she’d once felt towards Tiberius, the love she’d felt towards him, the grief and the betrayal that had sliced through her at his violence, most of it had faded in these last few years, replaced with Thanos’ sharp, white teeth, like swords, and his red, red eyes.

She hadn’t thought of anything beyond Thanos in years.

But for Tony, right now, Tiberius Stone is still his Thanos – she can see it in his eyes.

“I’m guessing, by the look in your eyes, that he was the same kind of guy he was in mine,” Toni muses, sending him a measured look.

“I’m guessing that too,” Tony murmurs. “Did he… did he used to hit you?”

“He did,” Toni agrees. “Did he used to hit you too?”

Tony just nods, a barest shake of his head, his face twisting up.

“He used to…” Toni worries her teeth on her lower lip. “He used to… get me drunk, or we used to get drunk a lot, I mean, he didn’t force the shit down my throat, I drank it of my own volition, but he’d hit be when we were drunk, when _I_ was drunk, and then, when I’d wake up and I was sober, he’d tell me I was… I was clumsy, so clumsy and that’s how I got drunk, until he didn’t need me drunk to hit me, until he got so confident in my weakness and my insecurity that he knew I would stay with him even after he hit me, and then he hit me all the time. There was…”

Her throat flexes.

“There was one time when he put me in hospital. Broken bones, internal bleeding, dislocated jaw, jaw was wired shut for weeks, and it was… it was terrifying, it was the most terrifying moment of my life. I’ve never been so terrified in my life, even when I was blown up and I woke up in a cave with a car battery hooked up to me and wires going in my chest, even when my godfather tried to kill me multiple times, even when my body was slowly turning on itself with palladium poisoning, even when I fought fucking aliens in New York. I wasn’t afraid of anything more than I was afraid of Ty, afraid of being back on that bathroom floor, as he kicks me and kicks me and doesn’t stop kicking me and then he leans down and touches my hair and I cringe, because I’m human and I have instincts, and he tells me that it’s not so bad, get up, _get up, Toni, don’t be weak, it’s not that bad_.”

Her lip curls up, sharply, her mouth thinning.

“He was the thing I was afraid of, and I’ve never told anyone about that,” she says, quietly. “And then, I met Thanos. And now, Ty isn’t the thing that makes me afraid the most. It’s Thanos. It’s him I see when I got to sleep, and I have nightmares. He has established himself as the monster in my narrative. He’s… done everything that a monster can possibly do to a person. He’s kidnapped me, held me prisoner, threatened to kill the people I love in this world, he’s mutilated me for his own self-interest and vanity and narcissism, he’s assaulted me and manipulated me and raped me and forced me to kill people. He’s the one I’m afraid of, and I hate that. You don’t know how much I hate that.”

“It’s the same for me too,” Tony says, quietly. “It’s just that… Ty always scared me; every time I thought of him, it was like I was still that teenage boy, in love and being abused by the boy I love. And it stayed like that, that fear, until I went into the wormhole. And then, it changed again when Steve Rogers held his shield high above my head, ready to bring it down and decapitate me. I’m not going to pretend that it compares at all to what you’ve been through with Thanos-”

“Don’t,” she says, sternly. “Don’t do that, don’t compare it. It’s not fair to you. Your fear is your fear, and it’s all valid. It’s not… I’m not going to tell you that it doesn’t matter, what you’re scared of, it’s valid. It’s…”

“You’re saying that to make me feel better,” Tony points out.

“No… I’m just… I’m just saying that, I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone.” Toni lifts her eyes up, cold and clean and clear. “I’m glad you’re not afraid of that, I’m glad you’re afraid of Thanos, because you should be, because that means you won’t underestimate him, you’ll be smart about it, but you won’t have any of my damage, you won’t-” Her mouth is dry like sawdust. “You won’t be dragged down by all my trauma, all my PTSD at his hands. That’s good. That’s a good thing.”

“So, he scares us,” Tony says, definitively, sighing. “And we’re going to kill him. Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable response.”

Toni blows out a breath between her teeth. “We aren’t people who just accept being afraid,” she tells him, sympathetically. “We don’t do well with fear. When we get afraid, we get angry, and Thanos… Thanos is someone we deserve to be angry at. He’s someone that deserves to die, and it will be terribly ironic and fitting, frankly, if he dies at our hand. I’m okay with that, are you?”

“So, we’re basically Sith Lords, that’s what you’re saying,” Tony says, slowly. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering?”

Toni laughs a little, bright and proud (it feels so long since she’s had the chance to laugh like that). “I’m hoping to end at the suffering. We don’t need any more suffering.”

“Things became sort of normal after that,” Toni muses. “It became my day-to-day routine. He’d make us kill people, of course, under the threat of extreme violence, and at night, he’d rape me. Bloodlust, I think. You know when they say that when you kill someone, you get so high on the feeling-”

“-that you need to fuck everything in sight?” Tony lifts an eyebrow. “It’s disgusting; we supposedly live in a civilised society but-”

“-some people are clearly still Neanderthals?” Toni offers with a smile that cuts like a knife. “Agreed. We… so, Thanos had another ‘son’, and I use that word lightly. He called himself Black Dwarf. When Thanos left on a mission, Black Dwarf took over some of his territory, re-enslaved his slaves, because Thanos has slaves. We were sent to off him, because he’d gravely offended Thanos with his betrayal. The guy mouthed off at me, and so I killed him, and when I went off at Thanos for having slaves, because I couldn’t think he could ever be so much of a monster, even with everything he’d done to me already, that was the first time that Thanos raped me.”

She remembers fighting him, as he peeled her armour off, and him touching her until she bleeds and him licking her blood off his fingers.

Tony is left floundering for words.

“So, yeah, he did that every night, and I could see it in Gamora and Nebula’s eyes, they hated it, they didn’t like it at all, but they didn’t know how to stop it. I never blamed them because… they couldn’t have stopped it, not without Thanos’ anger turning on them and-”

“You cared about them,” Tony says, his voice breaking messily. “You cared about them and you wanted to protect them.”

“I latch on, you know. I latch onto strays and I defend them,” Toni explains, almost ruefully.

“I do that too,” Tony offers, mouth curling upward in the semblance of a smile.

Toni nods with thin, pale copy of a smile herself. “He taught me how to control minds,” she offers.

Tony reels back, a little horrified.

She wonders if their pleasant interaction is about die in fire right now, because the idea that she can control minds is a deterrent for any friendship she would make with people, especially when she adds her ability to reach out and turn people to dust with a single thought or raise the dead or walk across universes and empty voids and melt into the ground and find herself in another place.

She thinks, above all of them, the fact that she can control minds is probably the worst.

“I haven’t done that to you,” she says, quickly, not wanting to wait and have the wound fester. “I haven’t… I wouldn’t do that to you.”

It’s somewhat useless in the grand scheme of things, when she can do things like turn people to dust and bring the dead back to life, but still, if Tony needs assurance on that front, she’s happy to give it to him.

Tony stares at her for a moment. “I know, I know you wouldn’t.”

“It’s what he did to Loki,” she offers. “Not the whole way through, just-just enough to destabilise him, I suppose. You remember what he was like during New York, like he was on a seriously bad acid trip.”

Tony nods. “All strung-out and shit, yeah, I remember.”

“He used to make me practice on people he was already going to kill,” she says, casually. “I became quite good at it.” She looks down at her upturned palms, watches as the skin flares gold. “Not that I need it anymore.”

She doesn’t tell him what she did next, she doesn’t tell him how she went to her rapist willingly, shoved him down onto that bed and crawled on top of him, so she could ride his thigh to a quick, sharp orgasm.

“Are you… does that mean that Loki wasn’t in control of his actions when he came to Earth?” Tony asks, carefully, worrying his teeth on his lower lip.

“No,” Toni says, definitively. “He was in control of his actions. He was just… well, Gamora and Nebula tell me, on my Earth, Loki fell away from the Bifrost after his fight with Thor, you know, after all that shit in Puente Antiguo, he fell away and he kept drifting and it was Thanos who picked him up. He sensed… a lot of anger in him, resentment, things he could use. And through him, he saw Earth. It didn’t help things when SHIELD started experimenting with the Tesseract. He saw that, he saw that they had one of the infinity stones, and Loki, Loki _hated_ us. He hated us for stealing his brother’s attention, for having the Tesseract; he thought we were… what did he say to Fury? He called us ants, and he was the boot. It was just… it was all a desire to stamp out something he saw as unworthy. So, Thanos gave him an army, gave him the mind stone, and ordered him to get the Tesseract in exchange for all of that. I do believe he was tortured. Thanos isn’t the greatest bunkmate, nor does he believe in positive reinforcement as a mentor. But I can’t see any indication that he was coerced into doing any of the things he did. Of course, only Loki can tell us for certain.” Toni absentmindedly scratches her cheek. “He called me his mother of madness.”

“Nice name,” Tony offers.

A smile stretches across her lips. “Well, he already said I was his mother of monsters as well. It wasn’t a huge… deviation from that, I suppose. After that, Thanos became pretty obsessed with finding the infinity stones. He’d had enough of dawdling. I also found the armour. He hadn’t destroyed it, surprisingly; he’d kept it hidden away, but I was able to find it after some time, and the best part of that wasn’t actually getting one up over Thanos. It was… it was JARVIS. I got JARVIS back,” she says, a knot forming in her throat. “And I connected him up to the, uh, to the ship, and I heard his voice and I-”

“-started crying?” Tony guesses.

“Yeah, I started crying. He told me everything that had happened on Earth while I was gone. It was… it was pretty much the same way it happened for you. Uh, apparently, I’m dead on Earth, or rather, I was declared dead when I didn’t come back through the wormhole when Romanoff closed it. There was a funeral and everything, apparently, even though it was an empty coffin and I’m Hindu, so we don’t have funerals. There were a lot of guests, Rhodey, the Avengers, Fury, Pepper and Happy, of course, the Carter-Jones. POTUS, the WSC, Prince William and Kate, Hilary Clinton, politicians. Lionel Richie, Adele, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Gandhi. Peggy was there. She made the trip from DC; apparently, she was lucid,” she syas, breathless and pained.

“She was well enough for it,” Tony says, quietly. “She was… she was on bedrest at the time-”

“I know, I said the same thing,” Toni says, quickly. “But she was good. Um… the Mandarin, Rhodey dealt with that. The Extremis virus is stable in Pepper. Greenwich was trashed by elves, not from the Lord of the Rings, and Thor. The Winter Solider is a thing on my planet too. That’s all I know. Frankly, that’s all I _want_ to know. I’m not there, so it’s not like I can… I can do anything.”

“You didn’t think about escaping?” Tony asks.

“I did,” Toni says, unblinking and not breathing. “I did… it was my first instinct once I found the armour, to get the hell out of dodge. But… Thanos is the endgame,” she says, lifting her chin, defiance in every tilt. “Thanos is the endgame for all of us. I’m _strong_ now. I can _kill_ him, and it would be easy to do it. I could-I could _think_ about it and he would just be… he would just be dead. That would be _easy_. But… that wouldn’t be right, that wouldn’t be fucking poetic,” she snarls, and her teeth are sharp. “He deserves to hurt, he deserves to know that he’s failed, that I took everything from him, and he’s alone – that’s how he should be when he dies, when we kill him. So, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave without Gamora and Nebula. I had to make them leave with me, so I played the long game. Maybe, in retrospect, it was a dumb decision. But I… I told you, I don’t do well with fear, I react more often in anger than I do anything else.”

“You wanted to make Thanos hurt,” Tony says, shrugging. “I understand the feeling. If I ever saw Thanos, I’d want to make him hurt too.”

Toni chews on her lower lip. “We… we became allied with Ronan, he’s… okay, a little history into alien politics, there’s the Kree Empire and then, there’s the Nova Empire. The Kree and the Nova have been at war for centuries, but recently, because the Kree were losing, they agreed to sign a peace treaty. Ronan is a Kree warrior; he _hates_ the idea of a peace treaty, doesn’t see how the Kree can just forgive what the Nova have done. So he’s-”

“-a genocidal, warmongering maniac?” Tony guesses.

“Pretty much,” Toni murmurs.

“So, why did Thanos agree to ally himself with Ronan?”

“Because Ronan found the power stone,” Toni says, simply.

“Ah,” Tony says in understanding.

“So, they made a deal. Ronan would get the power stone for Thanos, and Thanos would lend his forces to Ronan so that the Nova Empire could be destroyed. The power stone,” her throat flexes, her mouth suddenly dry as cotton. “The power stone is contained in an ancient artefact, an orb, to contain the singularity, because the stone would disintegrate anyone who actually put their hands on it. Ronan… Ronan used to go on killing sprees and force us to go along. I tried to stay away from as many as I could, but sometimes, I had no choice.” She sucks in a deep breath. “He… he wanted me to have his kids,” she tells him, her eyebrows furrowing.

“What?” Tony says, disgusted.

“He wanted me to have his kids, which was weird, because he’d chopped off my entire torso, so… no uterus. But then, Nebula told me, no, he wants to have kids with me, and he kept my parts.”

Tony’s face pinches into something that looks like disgust.

“He kept my eggs, so he could have a kid with me one day, and then, he walked in, and I attacked him.”

Tony’s face flickers with surprise.

“I just… I lost it, I forgot about playing the long, about ingratiating myself with him, and I just… lunged at him,” she sighs, smoothing her hands down his thighs. “It felt _good_. It felt so good, like I was finally me, finally reacting the way I was supposed to. He found about the armour, you see; Proxima Midnight told him. She… oh, well, I had sex with her later, angry sex, angry, consensual sex where I found out she was a child bride with a violent husband who’d never given her an orgasm, which just… made me angrier at Thanos, you know. But when Thanos came, he was so angry, he was about to hit me, but then, Gamora and Nebula are standing in front of me, shielding me, and yeah,” she finishes, lamely.

“They love you,” Tony says, almost amazed. “You know, Rhodey says, wherever I go, I find strays. You… you take that to a whole new level.”

Toni shrugs. “I love Gamora and Nebula. They’re the only ones in my universe who understand what it’s like to hate Thanos and want to see him bleed. They were pissed off at me after it, of course. They thought I was being stupid, provoking him for no reason, you know. I wasn’t being smart about it, as far as they’re concerned. After that is when I had sex with Proxima Midnight. It started off as angry sex, and then, I realised that she’d been dealt a pretty shitty hand by Thanos herself, and it devolved into something that had empathy.” Her mouth twists in displeasure. “Not that the sex wasn’t bad, it’s just… I don’t like having empathy for people who contribute to my kidnapping, you know?”

“It would’ve been simple if it was just angry sex,” Tony says, making a sympathetic noise.

“You know how it goes,” Toni says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Thanos was furious with me after that. But then, he took me sightseeing.”

“What?” Tony demands, his voice incredulous.

“He took me in this pod, and we kept flying. He told me about his plans for us, how we’d have a veritable brood of babies. He wanted us and our children to rule over the universe after he’d snapped his fingers and killed half of everyone who lives there. I told him I didn’t want children. He didn’t seem to care. He told me that wasn’t true, that I did want children, and then proceeded to go through all of my trauma since I was a toddler and mansplain to me that that was the reason why I didn’t want to have children, not some actual, legitimate reason. In the end, he said that I had little choice in the matter. He told me that he would go to Earth and offer them a choice, offer them to chance to stand with him, help him, and if they didn’t, if they stood against him, he’d kill them. He told me, to my face, that he’d kill Rhodey and Pepper and Sharon and Happy and I…”

The words stop coming, her tongue stops working.

She looks away, as the tears burn and sting at her eyes.

“He was very clear about what I meant in the grand scheme of things, to him, at least.” She makes a face between disgust and confusion. “I don’t know… I just… it sounds awful, I know, terrible, I know, but I thought…”

“You thought you meant something to him,” Tony tells her, smiling a small and unhappy smile. “At the very least, you thought you meant something to him.”

Toni looks up at him, her mirror in every way except for the fact that he has a cock, and he smiles again, painfully wide.

“You forget, I loved Tiberius Stone once too,” he points out, his voice sour and unpleasant. “So, I know how it goes. I know what it’s like to love someone who’s bad for you, who hurts you, who hates everything that makes you _you_.”


	17. xvii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: selfcest, explicit sexual content.
> 
> Written for the "forbidden love" square (O3) for the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020.

“I don’t _love_ him,” Toni grinds out, with her dark, flashing eyes. “I _don’t_ love Thanos… I just…” she trails off and makes a sound like a cat hissing. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the daddy issues… I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome,” Tony offers, his voice light. “Because you know he’s bad, he’s bad for _you_ , but you can’t help yourself, because he owns your life. He controls everything bad for you. You didn’t just… Toni, you didn’t fall in love with someone who _abuses_ you. _We_ didn’t do that, with Ty for both of us, with Rogers for me, and with Thanos for you. We fell for a guy who smiled at us sometimes, who treated us nicely sometimes, who made us laugh and feel good about ourselves. That’s how I felt with Ty and Rogers. They made me feel… like I could paint the sun into the sky.”

“Thanos didn’t do anything like that,” Toni says, dully. “Thanos didn’t make me feel good about myself at all. He didn’t make me laugh. The only nice thing he did for me was get his captive daughter to train me to fight. That’s it. Everything else… everything else was torture and abuse. So… I understand what you’re saying; I felt all of those things with Ty. I felt like… I felt like he _saw_ me, every inch of me, and wanted me, like no one else had wanted me. I don’t feel _wanted_ with Thanos. I feel on edge, all the time. I feel like he’s going to kill me all the time. I don’t… so, I must be fucked up,” she finishes heavily, the words tumbling right out of her.

Tony does something that crosses the accepted forms of affection between them. He reaches out and drapes his arm around her shoulders, and he pulls her across the sofa until she’s huddled against his side.

It’s the first, warm, human touch she’s felt in years, and she’s ashamed to say that tears sting and burn at her eyes.

“Why are you hugging me?” she asks, soft and ragged.

“Because you need a hug, and frankly, so did I. This story’s pretty triggering. Your life sucks,” he declares.

She lets out a reedy little laugh in response, and she tucks her head under his chin, his beard scraping against her skin, turning it a little red, but a comfortable red.

“My life sucks,” she agrees. “Thank you for the hug, as childish as it sounds. I don’t think… no one’s hugged me in years, not since I went through the wormhole. I think it was… I think it was Pepper, who hugged me last, before she went to DC and I went to Stuttgart. I needed that,” she says, roughly, feeling stretched taut as a drumhead.

“You’re not fucked up, by the way,” Tony tells her, holding her hard with his long, strong limbs. “You’re brave; you might actually be the bravest person that I’ve ever met. You were just forced into an impossible position. I don’t know…” he hesitates for an agonising moment. “I don’t know if I could’ve done half of what you’ve done.”

“I think you could’ve. We’re technically the same person,” Toni points out.

Tony snorts. “I think in this case, gender really plays an active role.”

Toni arches an eyebrow. “I hope you don’t mean it in the way that women have the genetic ability and fortitude to deal with abuse from the male species?”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds offensive,” Tony retorts. “And I’m not saying that it’s a good thing or that it _should_ be that way. I’m just saying… all the women I’ve known have been much stronger than the men I’ve known, including myself.”

Toni reaches up, hand curling around his jaw until she’s somewhat mushing his face. “You’re cute,” she declares, boneless and brainless like this in his arms. “I like you.”

Tony smooths a hand over her hair. “You’re cute too,” he says, amused. “and I like you too.”

“On our sightseeing trip, he took me to the edge of the universe,” she says, leaning back against his firm chest.

His hand settles around her waist, flattening against her belly.

“That’s an actual, literal place, you know? The edge of the universe. I walked out to the side, was about to brush my hand through it, and he stopped. He said that there were some things not meant for my touch, that it might kill me. And then, we heard a voice; it was… it was this weird voice; like, it set my teeth on edge, made me ears ring, made me go all cold inside. There was a… a woman? A woman, she was tall, taller than a building, like she was a giant, and she was made in gold. It was freaky,” she says, shuddering just the slightest. “She said, she said her name was Brio. She’s what they call a Celestial, one of the first beings ever created.”

“Trippy.”

“The things you learn, huh?” Toni drawls. “She held out a sword, this double-edged saw-like thing, that she handed over to Thanos and he took with such fucking pride, it was _disgusting_. And then, she turned to me, and she knew my name, and she called me, _Ahalya, daughter of Maushmi_ , and then, she snapped her fingers, and I was on fire. I was burning and I was hurting and I was screaming and it was like… it was the worst and best thing I’d ever felt, like-like multiple orgasms and getting stabbed fifty-two times, simultaneously, you know?” she shakes her head. “I saw things. I saw Dad, and Mum, and I saw Jarvis and Ana and Peggy and I saw Rhodey and Pepper and Ty and Sharon and Happy and Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes and I saw a thousand different universes, just like mine. I think…” she peers up at him with those inky-black, over-large eyes of hers. “I think I saw _you_.”

Tony digs his teeth into his lower lip and just brushes back her hair, wordlessly.

“And then, I was waking up, and I was back on the ship, and Nebula, of all people, was at my bedside. She said, apparently, I just collapsed and Thanos brought me back and most of them were thinking that I was dead. And then, Gamora came in, and I just-I just snapped. I told them we’re leaving, and we left, just like that, like it was the easiest thing for us to do. We left, and we were free, and it was like, it was like I could breathe again. I could _breathe_ again, but then, I ended up in the desert with them.”

“The desert?” Tony’s brow furrows.

Toni grumbles to herself. “I guess I don’t have total control of my powers just yet, and I melted us through the floor right into Afghanistan.”

Tony starts laughing, a reedy little laugh that shudders right through his body. “Oh, my fucking God. Of _course_ you ended up in Afghanistan.”

“Exactly,” Toni mutters. “And then, we were on Xandar, which is like the capital of the Nova Empire. I found the orb, the power stone, I mean.”

Tony’s eyes crinkle. “Oh?”

“Yeah, this guy, he’s human actually, he was just… he was kidnapped by aliens as a kid, which sounds like a shitty movie, I know, but it’s the truth. He started working for these scavengers. He’s the one who found the power stone, by mistake, of course-”

“Well, there’s no boundary of luck for idiocy,” Tony mutters.

“Quite,” Toni says, dryly. “We got into a fight in a public square for the orb, and well, we got arrested, sent to prison. That’s where I was just before I came here.”

Tony sits up, his eyes as big and round as the moon. “Wait, you’re in prison?” he asks, incredulously.

Toni waggles her eyebrows. “So, yeah, there you have it, my entire life in the last few years.”

Tony sighs, his entire body heaving, leaning back, so she can climb off his lap and sit back on her knees.

“I don’t know how you did it,” he says, his cheekbones and his collarbones too sharp under his skin.

She runs her fingers over it, the ridges of his bones – _he used to be heavier_ , she thinks; he’s lost weight because of the Avengers and Steve Rogers; they’ve made him smaller and weaker, but not to her, not to her.

She sees him, for what he is. She sees his quick mind, his tongue like fire, his stupid-good heart, his kindness, all of it.

“Yes, you do,” she says, her voice low, laced with honey, her eyes as dark as black smoke.

They’re the same, they’re the same person, the same heart and the same mind and the same soul.

She kisses him.

He smells of brandy and cigarettes, and there is something hollow in his eyes, which matches the something hollow in hers.

“This is…” he says, breathlessly. “This is fucked up.”

“Why?” she asks, amused. “Because we’re the same person.”

“Well, yeah,” Tony says, awkwardly. “I mean… I never thought about selfcest.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “Yes, you did,” she says, knowingly.

Tony looks like he wants to argue; finally, he sighs. “Okay, yeah, I did.”

She crawls into his lap, planting her hands on his shoulders, pressing her foreheads against his.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” she whispers, nudging her nose against his.

Tony licks his lips. “I have… I have participated in a number of kinky ventures in my time, but this… this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Toni grins fleetingly. “The chance to have sex with an uber-hot, female version of yourself?”

“Exactly.”

He kisses her this time, his mouth brushing against hers, like he thinks she might cower in fright. She feels the heat everywhere, in her belly and in her chest and in her cunt, and she moans against his mouth, deepening the kiss.

“Do you feel that?” she asks, her voice no more than a rasp. “The fire.”

He looks up at her, his eyes over-large and inky-black and swimming in heat. “I feel it,” he replies, his voice an octave lower than hers. “I feel it.”

“I want you to fuck me,” she breathes. Her belly clenches. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”

Tony groans and bears her down onto the couch. She’s splayed out across the soft cushions, her hair spilling everywhere, and he looks so painfully handsome between her thighs, her feet planted on the armrest.

“Why do I feel like this is going to become uncomfortable really quick?” he says, low and breathless.

Toni laughs, baring the long line of her throat, and her laugh abruptly cuts off, when he leans down and mouths at her pulse point. She knots her hand in his hair, tight against the scalp, and he puts his teeth on her, scraping against the soft skin. She’s wearing her prison suit, all canary yellow, and he’s sliding his hands under the shirt, so that he can stroke at her abdomen, her ribs.

They don’t provide bras in the Kiln, so he has easy-enough access to her breasts, cupping one fully in the palm of his hand, the heat of his skin tightening her nipples in response. She sits up as much as she can and removes it, baring the top half of her body to his gaze, watches as his eyes rake down the length of her, from her collarbone, bird-beak sharp against her skin, to the heavy swell of her breasts, her dark nipples, and her flat belly, which curves at the hips.

His throat flexes, sweat beading across his brow, and Toni smiles.

She curls a hand around the nape of his neck and brushes her mouth against his, this time softer, gentler, until her tongue is tracing the seam of his lips, parting it, so she can her tongue around his teeth. He moans, and he clutches at her, and she wonders, if she hasn’t had consensual, good sex in so long, how long as it been for him?

She crawls into his lap, her hands on his shoulder, nudging her nose against his, and he smooths his hands down the length of her body, brushing up against the curve of her breasts, which makes goosebumps run across skin. She rises onto her knees, so that he can roll down the slacks they’d given her in the Kiln, so she can kick it off onto the floor.

Toni finds the hem of his band t-shirt and removes it for him as well, revealing a lean, strong chest, a smattering of dark chest hair across his pectorals, with a neat line of hair trailing down to his pelvic bone. Her fingers then attack the button on his jeans, unbuttoning and sliding down the zipper, which splits through the air, the sharp, metallic sound.

He watches her, an obscene, dazed look in his eyes, as she smiles and takes control of the situation. Her smile grows teeth and she leans forward, brushing her lips over his eyes, his cheekbone, his mouth and then, down to his jaw, just as her small hand slips inside his jeans and boxers and curls around the heavy weight of his cock.

Tony grunts and jerks into her grip, and he catches her mouth with his, his tongue licking at her teeth. His hands are everywhere, on the insides of her thighs and on her ribs and on her breasts, and his mouth is moving down to bite at her neck. Toni lifts herself up, and Tony shoves his jeans and boxers down his legs, baring his hard, flushed cock to her bright, hot eyes.

Toni straddles him perfectly, rocking her cunt against his muscled thigh, until she’s leaving streaks of dampness against his skin. His fingers bite into her hips tight enough to bruise, and she heightens the pace of her of her hand on his cock, moving from base to head again and again, until her palm is slick with his pre-come. She shifts restlessly in his lap, and in response, he’s ducking his head, taking one firm nipple between his teeth and tugging.

Toni moans, throwing back her head. He tugs harder, feels her thrash around him, so sensitive, her nerves tangled like the knots on a sailboat. He pitches his hips against her, and she feels the length of his cock rubbing up against the crease between thigh and hip, that warm, soft patch of skin that’s a darker shade than any other inch of her body.

“I don’t want foreplay,” Toni says, breathlessly, nudging her nose against his. “Not really. I just want your cock.”

Somehow, she wonders if it’ll make her whole, fill this gaping, gaunt emptiness inside her, fill her with fire until she’s burning.

He bites at the tendon in her neck, and she keens, and then his hot tongue is flicking out to soothe the sting. His hand winds its way between their bodies, between her legs, long piano fingers tangling in the dark thatch of her pubic hair, the heel of his hand against her clit. He moves lower, and he starts rubbing soft circles around her clit until she’s leaking, dripping, a thin sheen of slick coating her thighs and his.

She surges on top of him, kissing him hard and messy and careless, his chest hair scratching at her nipples, and then, he cracks his hand against her ass, and she yelps, glowering down at him.

He smiles up at her, with all of those pearly-white teeth.

“Seriously?” she says, with an arched eyebrow.

“I just thought I’d change things up a bit.”

Before she can respond, he’s sliding one finger up inside her, right to the knuckle. Her insides flutter around him, and she breathes and claws against the stretch, her whole body shuddering and going taut.

“You liked that,” he says, a little awed. “You liked that a lot.”

Toni peers down at him, her brow damp with sweat. “All girls like fingering, when done properly.”

“I know that,” Tony says, dismissively. “It’s just… no one’s liked it as much as you liked it.”

Toni’s teeth cover her lower lip. “Yeah?” she says, in a low, rushed voice.

She wonders if that’s what being the soul stone is – all greed and hunger and satiation, and anything less than that is useless, not worthy of attention.

She clenches around him, drips harder, and he groans, tipping his head onto the delicate line of her collarbone. His hand skims her body like the touch of a cobweb, like he thinks she’s precious and he doesn’t want to stop touching her. One finger becomes two, and she sighs in satisfaction, chewing on her lower lip, her eyelashes fluttering close.

Tony’s other hand traces from the slope from neck to shoulder, down to the curve of her ribs, over the crease of her hip and the tender inside of her thigh, spreading her open for him, finding her soft and yielding.

Two fingers become three, and he stretches her nicely, sliding knuckle-deep with ease. He twists them mercilessly and watches as her expression skirts the edge of pain. His fingers fill her so full, so tight, teasing her and then drawing her out. He circles her clit with his thumb, and she grinds back, sitting up and bearing down on them.

She comes for the first time like this, with his fingers inside her, on her, pushing and pulling, twisting and crooking, and she sees lights behind her eyes, as the tendons go taut under her skin. She collapses, when the orgasm fades, against his chest, laughing breathlessly, her nails digging into his skin.

“Fuck,” she says, in a low, rushed voice.

Tony, with his free hand, brushes her sweat-damp hair out of her eyes, tracing the curve of her cheekbone with his thumb.

“Yeah?” he asks. “It was that good.”

Toni’s mouth is as dry as sawdust. “It was very good,” she replies, breathing slow, the blood pounding in her ears.

She slides her hand between them, finds his cock, which is half-hard in her palm, and she strokes up and down until it comes to full hardness between her fingers. She angles her body over him, hand still on the base of his cock. She moves on top of him, with sinuous, preternatural grace, and she sinks on top of him, until he’s filling her up, stretching her, and she’s dripping so much it’s drenching his cock. She rises and falls, clenching around his cock, twisting her hips so that she can grind her clit against his pelvic bone on each down stroke.

“Fuck,” Tony curses, and he clutches at her waist, thumbs slotting into the dips of her pelvic bone, so hard that she’ll bruise in a few hours, she’ll be sore as fuck. “You feel… _fuck_ , you feel so good.”

Toni shifts her hips, squirming unthinkingly, as his cock splits her open, and she wraps her arms around his shoulders tighter. His hips stutter and snap upwards, dragging the air right out of her lungs, and it wrings out a soft, desperate noise from the pit of her throat. He ruts into her, like he’s on a mission, like he can’t take the slow game anymore, and she cries out with every thrust, grinding herself down in a rhythmless frenzy. He rams into her hard, fucking her hard and thoroughly, and she lets him move her on top of him as he wishes, splayed out over him and taking it.

Her body opens up for him, so hungry, so wanting, and she tightens up around him, especially when he gets his fingers on her clit, cursing at the tight, complicated angle against her shoulder, and he starts rubbing, swiping over the hard, little knot at the crown of her cunt, and she’s fluttering hard around him, clenching and throbbing, squeezing him like a vice.

Toni gasps for breath against his shoulder, setting her teeth on the muscle and biting down, and the next thrust, the next time he snaps his hips up inside her, and she watches the flex of his muscle, as he drags out, she comes. Her orgasm washes over in a sudden, furious rush, as her world reduces to a single point, into something clear and bright and sharp, and then, she’s burning again, she’s bleeding out with the fire, and she’s screaming until her throat is sore, her cunt pulsing around his cock.

He thrusts once, then, twice, and he’s crashing over that edge himself, grunting and cursing against the curve of her shoulder, his mouth a slack, wet smear, hands digging into her skin. There’s a warm wash of heat against her thighs, inside her, and when he slides free of her, they look down and they can see her cunt open and grasping, come and slick staining her skin.

She falls onto the other side of the couch, biting her lip at the pleasant stretch in her thighs and the oversensitive flesh between her thighs.

“You might have to get this couch cleaned,” she tells him, her voice still at a pant.

Tony sends her a lazy smile. “Worth it,” he teases.

Toni starts laughing, and somehow, they’re cuddling, and within moments, she’s falling asleep against his shoulder, hand thrown over his belly.

When she wakes up, she’s in her cell, she’s wearing her prison clothes, and she’s wondering, _did I dream all of that, or did it actually happen_?

She ponders the question for a moment, and then, she slides a hand between her legs, and she finds herself still wet and gaping, covered in slick and come and sweat.

_Actually happened, definitely actually happened._

* * *

The guards come from her an hour later. They pull her up from her bed, bodily, large hands banding around her arms, and they drag her to this room. They strip her naked, not allowing her the dignity of doing it herself, and they hose her down with this strange orange liquid that she supposes passes for water, the spray of which shoves her right up against the grilling.

It has the effect of cleaning up the mess between her thighs, so she’s grateful for that at least.

She dresses herself, with the guards watching her with the sort of clinical understanding that one might have for a dead pig (at the very least, only one or two of them look at her with lust in their eyes, unable to drag their eyes away from her breasts or her soft, shapely thighs or the dark shadow between her thighs hiding her cunt away from their gaze), as well as these strange drones watching her, as if waiting for the moment where she will try and escape, so they can have the advantage of tasing her as they’d tased Quill earlier.

She comes out into a common area, where Quill and Rocket are already sitting, and she can’t help but stare at the vicious scars on Rocket’s back, how an entire score of it seems to be shaved away, replaced with these metal nodules carved into his back.

Toni’s stomach rolls.

Gamora and Nebula are the last to come out of the hatch, and she startles when she sees Gamora pulling Nebula along, her arm draped over her shoulders, a slack, unmoving expression to Nebula’s blue face.

“What? What happened?” Toni demands, touching Nebula’s jaw with tenderness.

Gamora’s jaw goes taut. “She did not react so well when they began hosing us down. She was tased by those savages,” she snarls, eyeing the guards with no small amount of hate.

“Let’s get her to sit down,” Toni offers. “Until she gets her feeling back.”

“I am fine,” Nebula snarls, her voice coming out like a drunken slur, one half of her jaw sloping down, turned down at the corners. “I am fine. I will… I will kill them _all_ -”

Toni reaches out, her hand gripping the slack side of Nebula’s jaw, and with a flick of her wrist, she’s snapping it back in place. Nebula winces.

“Shit!” Quill hisses from behind them.

Toni looks over her shoulder to glare at him, before her eyes dart back over to Nebula. “If you talk like that, it’ll only make them shock you again,” she says, lightly.

Nebula’s shoulders straighten. “I can take it,” she says, fiercely.

“Don’t be a moron,” Toni retorts. “Save your strength for when we get the hell out of dodge.”

Nebula’s face twists, but she nods nonetheless, standing up and taking the rolled-up pad from the guard. Toni stares at the fleshy cylinder in her hands, wondering what it is, and it’s only when she’s shown into makeshift dressing rooms that she releases that her armour has been cleaned.

She dons it like a second skin, and it’s the same colour, the same shape that her prosthetic had taken when Thanos was done hacking her to bits, and she wonders if this is the sort of thing that people go to therapy over, modelling her new armour over a traumatic, non-consensual body modification she went through – that being said, she did put the arc reactor at the centre of her Iron Woman armour even with all the PTSD that came with her getting the damn thing put in her chest.

So, maybe, she’s just one of those dysfunctional people.

“Are you done?” Nebula asks, her voice terse.

“I’m done,” she says, staring at herself in the gritty mirror.

She turns around, mustering up a shaky smile for Nebula, to which she just simply sniffs at, haughtiness in her very bearing. Toni rolls her eyes and hooks her arm through Nebula.

She looks down at her nose at the gesture, at the sight of their arms intertwined like that, and grimaces.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“Holding hands,” Toni says, simply, knocking her hip against Nebula’s. “It’s what girlfriends do.”

Nebula stares at her for a moment. “You are a whole new level of lunacy,” she declares.

“But you still love me,” Toni teases.

Nebula rolls her eyes, and they join Gamora, who simply raises an eyebrow at their arms hooked through each other’s.

“You two are very adorable together,” Gamora says, with a shit-eating grin.

Nebula scowls absolute murder. “I will cut out your tongue,” she growls.

Gamora just flutters her eyes in response.

When they come through the grated tunnels into the big, open area where all the prisoners are seating and eating their meal, every single prisoner has their eye on them, and not in a friendly way.

In particular, their eyes follow each and every movement that the three women make, tracking their footsteps with an eerie intensity.

“Looks like we’re popular down here,” Toni mutters.

Gamora and Nebula remain silent, their lips pursing thin.

But Toni understands; she understands her newfound popularity in this ramshackle prison comes at Thanos’ bidding, because they recognise her, they know who she is, who _they_ are, and what they mean to Thanos.

It makes her skin crawl quietly that even after they fought against him, condemned his actions, ran away from him, they’re still painted with the same brush.

She holds her head up high – it isn’t the first time she’s inspired hatred; it won’t be the last.

In the centre is a giant column made of scrap heap, topped up by a watchtower of sorts with guards peering down at them through the glass. Drones flutter through the air, monitoring everything that happens between the prisoners.

Gamora nudges her in the side with a sharp elbow.

“What?” Toni hisses.

“That woman is watching a holo-drama and crying,” Gamora says, slowly, yellow eyes fixed on the woman in question.

Toni sighs. “It must be one hell of a holo-drama.”

Something hits Quill in the face, drawing everyone’s attention.

There are a group of men clutching at the railing, one floor higher than them, hooting and hollering, sending lascivious looks towards Quill. And then, the prisoners surround Nebula, Gamora and herself, screaming obscenities and spitting at their feet.

One of them tries to make a grab for Gamora, but Nebula slams her foot down on his arm, resulting in a loud, resounding crack that Toni guesses is the breaking of a bone. The alien screams and backs up until his back is hitting the scrap heap tower, glowering at Nebula.

Another one, bigger than the first, steps forward. Toni sidles in front of the two, stretching her arms out as if to shield them from the oncoming attack.

“I will eat your eyes,” she declares, with a cold-cut look. “Back the fuck up.”

The alien stares down at her with his beady, dark eyes, and then, before anything can happen, the air shuddering with its charged atmosphere, Groot steps between them, folding those long, wooden arms of his and shooting him a dark look.

The alien takes one look at Groot, the height of him and the breadth of his chest, and steps back, head lowering. Groot turns to Toni, baring his teeth in a smile, like, in truth, at the heart of him, he’s no older than five.

Maybe he isn’t.

“They sure don’t like you three,” Rocket says, casually, with a smirk plastered across his furry face.

“Go fuck yourself,” Toni snaps.

Quill’s look is all bemusement, his brow furrowed.

Rocket sighs in resignation. “Like I said, they’ve got a rep,” he explains to Quill. “A lot of prisoners here have lost their families to Ronan and his goons.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t matter much if we told them that we don’t really know the blue-skinned genocide dealer well?” Toni offers.

Gamora’s lips purse even thinner. Nebula just lifts her chin, defiance in every tilt.

 _I am just as much of a victim of Thanos as anyone else in this prison_ , Toni reminds herself, when the guilt begins to curl in her chest. _So is Gamora and so is Nebula. We are victims. Thanos is the evil one here._

“They’ll last a day, tops,” Rocket comments, cavalierly.

“Not if I don’t use you as a body shield,” Nebula snaps back, grinding her teeth.

Quill’s face tightens, and Toni can’t believe that it looks like empathy.

“The guards will protect them, right?” Quill asks Rocket, almost naively.

Rocket snorts. “They’re here to stop us from getting out; they don’t care what we do to each other inside.”

Toni winces when the screams in her face reach ear-splitting level. She wonders if they’d shut up if she gave them a show to shut up to.

Almost as if the fire within her is sentient, her hands are glowing gold. Gamora’s hand clamps down on her wrist, unafraid, and Toni looks up. Gamora’s face is solid and unyielding, and she shakes her head.

“Not here, not now,” she insists.

“We’re here because this is the quickest way to getting our hands on the power stone,” Toni murmurs. “But the second that these pig people present a threat to us, we’re leaving. Killing Thanos is not worth dying over, and not at their hands.”

The old Toni, the one before she climbed through that wormhole, would have felt softness and pity and all those sweet, cotton-candy-like feelings for people whose homes and lives and families and everything were uprooted and demolished for Thanos and Ronan’s gain, but this Toni, the one who survived Thanos and came out of fire, she has nothing left for them, no feeling, no care, no concern, no amount of empathy or sympathy.

Maybe the soul stone has destroyed her.

Maybe Thanos did.

Maybe she never had a chance.

“We have to be better than Thanos,” Gamora tells her, solemnly. “You said we needed to be better than him.” She hesitates for an agonising moment. “Sometimes, I am afraid for you, Antonia.”

Toni doesn’t know what to say to that.

Gamora catches Quill staring at them, and she’s quick to offer him a thin, sharp smile.

“Whatever nightmares the future holds are dreams compared to what’s behind us,” she says, loftily.

When Quill turns around, a giant, periwinkle-blue coloured alien comes up to him, giving him a lazy, but almost studious look from head to toe.

“Check out the new meat.” The alien reaches out and strokes his fingers down the side of Quill’s face. “I’m gonna slather you up in jelly,” and then, for full measure, laughs like he’s made the universe’s funniest joke.

And then, Groot is standing between Quill and the alien, shoving two literal fingers up his nose, the fingers stretching and elongating, until he’s being held up in the air just by those two fingers alone, the alien screaming all the while.

“Let’s make something clear,” Rocket declares to the watching crowd. “This one here’s our booty.” He thumps his chest for effect. “You want to get to him, you go through us. Or more accurately, we go through you.”

Groot withdraws his fingers, and the alien hits the ground, clutching at his face and sobbing loudly.

Toni tilts her head at the sight. “Well, you can’t argue that they get results.”

* * *

When Toni, Gamora and Nebula return to their cells after the meal time is finished, the prisoners are still screaming at them, following their progress, until finally, they’re closed up in their cells, and a wall of glass separates them, dulling the noise.

Toni folds her hands in her lap, and reminds herself, _I am nothing like Thanos. I am going to kill Thanos. I will kill Thanos._


	18. xviii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mass murder, physical assault of three women, slut shaming, victim blaming, implied/referenced rape.

She falls asleep after some time, and she only awakens to the sound of breaking glass, and then, there’s hands grabbing at her. She reacts with a scream, and her hands are burning and turning them to dust before she even knows what she’s doing. When she opens her eyes, there’s a whole mob in her cell, and there are dead men lying around her, some of them corpses, some of them just piles of ash.

And they set on her, and she fights off as much as she can, runs herself through as many as she can, but the exhaustion sets in, which she despises, cannot stand, and they roar with triumph, dragging her bodily out of the cell, so that she can see that they have Nebula and Gamora in a similar position, a shiv worked out of some metal pressed against their throats.

Although, she doesn’t know how far they’ll get with Nebula, but she imagines they’ll keep hacking until they kill her.

Her hands begin to turn burn.

The knife pushes hard against the hollow of her throat, and she feels that instinctive spike of fear, even if she knows that it can’t hurt her.

_Kill him, eat his soul, take it for your own, possess him, he cannot touch you, he cannot hurt you, what is he compared to you?_

She closes her eyes against the whisper.

“Try that crazy shit again, and we’ll be leaving pieces of you to find of your sisters,” a voice snarls in her ear.

The fire dies down, and she sets her mouth in a hard line.

They drag her and Gamora and Nebula down a hallway, until they finally come to a guard. For a brief moment, hope cuts right through her.

Then, the guard just waves his hand at them dismissively.

“Take them down to the showers. It’ll be easier to clean up the blood down there,” he says, almost slyly, like he wished very hard that he was part of the fun.

Gamora screams in dismay, but the men drag them away before they can do anything. In the showers, they’re thrown against the wall, and the knives are still at their throats. Toni grimaces when the man holding breathes right in her face, so she can smell the rotted, fetid thing lurking inside his mouth.

“The daughters of Thanos, and his Black Bride,” one of the men purrs. “It’s our lucky day.”

Toni scowls and struggles.

“Consider this a sentence for your crimes against the galaxy-”

They pull back the knives, ready to run them clean through, and then, a voice interrupts them, grim and low.

“You dare?”

Toni looks over and, in the hatch of a doorway, a man stands, bald with strange, coloured tattoos crawling all over his body, his skin the colour and texture of elephant hide.

He lopes into the showers, with heavy steps, and almost immediately, the people holding them prisoner become deferent, their grips suddenly lax.

“You know who I am, yes?” the man demands.

“You’re Drax the Destroyer,” one of the others promptly answers, curling in on himself.

“You know why they call me this?”

“You have slain dozens of Ronan’s men.”

Drax faces the three women, locking eyes with Gamora, and then, Nebula, and then her. “Ronan murdered my wife, Ovette, and my daughter, Kamaria,” he says, a flat edge bleeding into his voice.

Toni’s throat flexes.

It’s not guilt that stirs within her, it’s frustration.

“He slaughtered them where they stood,” he turns to one of the other men. “and he _laughed_!” he roars in the man’s face. His voice lowers into something softer but no less dangerous. “Their lives are not yours to take. He killed my family,” he turns back to the three women. “and I shall kill his in return.”

“Of course, Drax,” one of the men simpers. “Here, I sharpened the blade for you.”

“That makes no sense,” Toni blurts out before she can stop herself.

“Antonia!” Gamora and Nebula hiss from beside her.

Drax growls. “Be silent, whore.”

Toni’s mouth flattens. “Be careful, prick,” she retorts. “We don’t even really know Ronan. He’s just another fucking trigger-happy genocidal maniac. He hates us, and we hate him. What, you think you’re going to strike at his heart if you kill us? I doubt he even remembers us. And frankly, we’d spit on his corpse if he were dead right in front of us.”

Drax almost falters, and then, he straightens. “It matters not. You are family to Thanos, who has allied himself with Ronan. Thanos is cut from the same cloth; they are both evil. Ronan butchered my people on Thanos’ orders. You are his children,” he tells Gamora and Nebula, “and you…” he fixes Toni with a dangerous look. “You would bed down with a monster to end all monsters.”

Toni leans forward, baring the razor line of her teeth. “There’s a huge difference between rape and consensual sex. It was the former with Thanos and me, but hey, if you want to hate on the victims, go right fucking ahead.”

“Shut your mouth, woman,” Drax snarls, lunging forward and wrapping his hand around her throat, pushing her up against it.

And then, Gamora reacts first, twisting the arms of the men that hold her, snapping the bone as if it were made of cotton candy, and then, Nebula is smacking her forehead against another and breaking the neck of the prisoner whose hands are pinning her to the wall, and then, they each have a blade pressed up against the nearest of the prisoners and against Drax’s throat.

“We are no family to Ronan or Thanos,” Gamora says, coldly, her eyes shining in her head, her voice a warning.

After a moment, Gamora peers at both men and steps back, her blade clattering against the metal floor. Nebula keeps hers raised, ever wary, ever vigilant.

“We are your only hope at stopping him,” Gamora says, almost kindly.

Drax doesn’t much like that, his face contorting with fury, and he lunges, letting go of Toni, who grasps at her throat, breathing hard, pinning Gamora against the wall the same way he had Toni, with brute force.

“Woman,” Drax snarls, pointing the sharp end of the blade against her throat, his hand shaking. “Your words mean nothing to me.”

Toni shrieks in outrage and suddenly, she has her forearm pressed against Drax’s wide shoulders, and she’s shoving him down to the ground as if he were made of polystyrene, crawling on top of him and placing her hands around his throat, which glow a terrible, terrible gold, hot as a fever.

“If you touch her, if you touch either of them again, I will burn you alive,” she says, a dangerous edge to her voice.

Drax struggles underneath her but he can’t seem to throw her off. “I will split your skull open,” he says, baring his teeth.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “I’d like to see you try,” she scoffs. 

She gets off him, clambering to her feet, and Drax, thoroughly shamed in front of those who’d easily feared him, stands as well.

“You know, if killing Ronan is truly your sole purpose, I don’t think this is the best way to go about it.”

They turn around to see Quill slowly approaching them from the hatch in the tunnel, holding his hands out in surrender, in case anyone decides to pick up the blades lying on the floor and use it against him.

Rocket just leans against the hatch, covering his face with his hand in exasperation.

Drax frowns. “Are you not the man that these witches attempted to kill?” he demands.

Quill snorts. “No offence, but they’re hardly the first women to try and do that to me,” he says, almost with a chuckle. Quill hikes up his yellow tunic, showing Drax and the rest of them a brown, shiny burn just at the base of his ribs. “Look, this is from a smoking-hot Rejak girl. Stabbed me with a fork, didn’t like me skipping out on her at sunrise.” He pulls down the collar of his tunic to show them a long, thin scar. “Right here, a Kree girl tried to rip out my thorax. She caught me with this skinny little A’askavariian who worked for Nova Records. I was trying to get information,” he explains sheepishly. “Ever seen an A'askavariian? Tentacles, needles for teeth. If you seriously think I was interested in that...”

Drax sends him cold, flat look.

Quill’s voice falters. “Oh, you don't care... but here’s the point,” he says, quickly. “They betrayed Ronan and Thanos,” he points to the three women. “They’re coming for them. And when he does, that’s when you…”

Quill drags a single finger across the width of his throat.

Drax’s face contorts with confusion. He narrows his eyes. “Why would I put my finger on his throat?” he demands.

Toni sighs.

“What?” Quill says, floundering.

Drax remains stubbornly silent.

Quill looks equally confused.

“It’s a sign,” Toni says, impatiently. “Finger across your throat means you slicing Ronan’s throat. Not Thanos, though. Thanos is mine,” she tells him fiercely.

“Woman, you do not get to make decisions here,” Drax bares his teeth at her.

Toni tightens the grip around his throat, his skin as tough as elephant hide and refusing to budge under her hand. “I think you’ll find that I do.”

“I will not do Thanos the satisfaction of slicing his throat,” Drax tells her, cruelly. “I will cut his head clean off, and I will make you watch.”

Toni leans in. “You really think I, or any of us, is going to shed a tear for Thanos when he dies?” she asks, amused.

“It’s a general expression for you killing Thanos-” Quill hastens to explain, looking at the other prisoners to help.

 _Fat luck with that,_ Toni thinks, faint with disgust. _They were about to shiv us in the shower a couple of minutes ago_.

“You’ve heard of this?” Quill asks the man who had a knife pressed up against Gamora’s throat, his voice almost helpless. “You know what that is?” he asks, making the gesture across his throat once more.

“Yeah,” the prisoner says, quickly, too afraid of Drax and Toni still perched on his lap to do anything but to speak in monosyllabic sentences. “No, no,” he says, when he catches Drax looking at him, purposefully.

Quill grinds his teeth, his face twisting in displeasure as the other prisoner fails him. “What I’m _saying_ is that you want to keep them alive-”

Toni laughs, throwing her head back, a bright, hard sound echoing through the lower level of the prison. “I don’t think he’s really in much of a position to do anything but,” she teases.

Quill glares at her and then, turns his attention back to Drax. “Don’t do Ronan’s and Thanos’ work for them,” he says, softly.

They are locked in a standstill, all of them, and Toni is very much aware of Gamora and Nebula standing right behind her, and she waits, waits for Drax to say something utterly controversial so she can have a right to remove him from this plane of existence.

And then, Drax heaves a sigh and glares up at Toni. “Get off me, woman,” he grunts, a shade calmer than he was before she bore him down to the ground.

For a brief instant, she’s tempted to shove her hand through his chest and pull the sodden, beating muscle of his heart right out of his ribcage, but somehow, she finds the strength to stall the urge.

And then, she climbs to her feet, with all the grace of a loping wolf, staring down at him with her dark eyes. He gets up as well, never taking his eyes off her, and on his way up, he grabs the dirty little shiv that he’d taken from one of the prisoners who’d accosted them, staring down at it.

“I like your knife. I’m keeping it,” he declares and walks off.

The prisoner ducks his head. “That was my favourite knife,” he says, mournfully.

* * *

“Listen,” Quill calls out, following them on their way back to their cells. “I could care less whether you live or you die-”

Gamora rounds on him. “Then, why stop the big guy?”

“Actually, it was your sister that stopped him,” Quill points out.

“Stepmother, actually,” Toni says, cheerfully.

Quill’s face twists in disgust. “Ew, really?”

Toni lifts an eyebrow.

Quill shakes his head, shuddering. “Look, it’s simple, you know where to sell my orb,” he says, stubbornly.

Gamora snorts. “How are we going to sell it if _we_ and _it_ are still here?” she demands, folding her arms over her chest.

Quill just smiles. “My friend Rocket here escaped twenty-two prisons.”

All three women turn to peer at the racoon.

“Oh, we’re getting out,” Rocket says, confidently. “And then, we’re heading straight to Yondu to retrieve _your_ bounty.”

“Who the fuck is Yondu?” Toni asks, plainly.

“He’s a Ravager, his boss, until this tall drink of water decided to jump ship and take the money for the orb for himself,” Rocket explains.

Gamora sends Quill a disgusted look. “And you call yourself a man of honour?”

Quill raises an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, I never called myself a man of honour,” he sends her a lazy smile. “I find that the ladies prefer me to be dishonourable.”

Gamora bristles beside Toni, but it’s Nebula who reacts before she can say anything.

“Look at my sister like that again, and I’ll eat your liver,” Nebula says, quiet but dangerous.

Quill blanches at the obvious threat, and he shakes his head, his shoulders straightening. “How much was your buyer willing to pay for _my_ orb?” he asks, congenially, staking a claim on the orb surreptitiously, like the guy who throws his arm around a girl’s shoulder when another guy is flirting with her.

“Four billion units,” Toni lies, before Gamora and Nebula can tell them the truth, that they weren’t going to sell the orb, that the orb was just a container for the thing inside, that the power stone would help them in their quest to kill Thanos, because these are men that think in terms of cash, in terms of reward and nothing else, and Toni has known half a hundred men just like them and knows exactly how to deal with them.

Nebula and Gamora give her a sharp look, wondering what she’s doing.

“What?” Rocket exclaims, his voice going high and thin.

“Shit,” Quill says, breathlessly.

Gamora lifts her chin, defiantly. “That orb is our opportunity to get away from Thanos and Ronan,” she says, firmly, honestly. “If you free us, we will lead you directly to the buyer and split the profits between the three of us-”

“-the four of us,” Rocket corrects, flinging a thumb at Groot, who peers at them with those heavy dark eyes of his and his thin-lipped, gummy smiles, through the grating. “I’m guessing the Weird Sisters act as one.”

“All for none, or none at all,” Toni replies, easily. “We share things with each other.”

Gamora and Nebula send her another incredulous look.

She ignores them.

* * *

“If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to need to get into _that_ Watchtower,” Rocket says, as they all collect their food on a metal tray. “I’m gonna need a few things.”

“The guards wear security bands to control their ins and outs,” Toni muses, staring at the guard high above, who taps at his forearm, insistently. “We’re going to need one to get anywhere. It’s like the space equivalent of an ID card.”

“You say that like you’re not from space,” Rocket says, glowering up at her for having stolen her thunder.

“I’m not,” Toni says, bluntly. “I’m from Earth.”

Quill startles at that, and she chances a look at him through the corner of her eye, watches his face pale and curdle and his mouth open to question her more on that point, before it falls abruptly shut, and he turns away.

She almost smiles.

She stares down at Rocket through the dip of her eyelashes.

“You’re not the only genius around here, racoon,” she purrs.

“What the fuck is a racoon?” Rocket demands.

“You’re a racoon,” Quill says before she can say anything.

“Leave that to us,” Gamora says, simply exchanging a look with Nebula.

“And that dude there,” Rocket gestures to a man hobbling forward on a metal leg. “I need his prosthetic leg.”

“His leg?” Toni asks, sceptically.

“Hey, you might be a genius on Earth, sweetheart, but I’m a genius in space,” Rocket says, arrogantly.

“She can also kick you so hard that you land on the ceiling,” Nebula says, with a sharp smile.

“And finally, on the wall back there, there’s a black panel, with a blinking yellow light. You see it?” Rocket asks.

“Yeah,” Toni says, simply.

“Behind the casing, there’s a Quarnyx Battery behind it. A purplish box, a lot of green wires. If we’re getting into that Watchtower, we’re definitely going to need it.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Gamora asks, confused.

“Well, supposedly, these bald bodies find you three pretty attractive, so maybe you could work out some sort of trade.”

Gamora leans forward, baring her teeth. “You _must_ be joking,” she snarls, almost snapping her teeth at him.

“No, I really heard that they find you attractive,” Rocket says, sincerely.

“Look, it’s twenty feet in the air and in the middle of the most heavily-guarded part of the prison,” Quill protests.

“As much as I hate to agree with the scavenger, he is right. The second we rip that battery from the casing, our escape must begin. Are we ready for that?” Nebula asks, shrewdly.

“I can get it,” Toni says, confidently.

They all turn to her, with varying degrees of suspicion and surprise.

Toni stares down at her hands, flexes her fingers, feels her mind stretch wide across the room, across the entire prison, clocking every heartbeat, the pulse, the heat of them, climbing inside them and touching their souls as if they belonged to her.

If she merely thought about it, she could remove all of them from existence, a terrible power on the edge of her tongue, so close, so sweet that she can taste it, as if the quiet deaths of thousands and millions of lives would taste like cotton candy.

Oh, hell, maybe she isn’t human anymore.

Maybe she’s become as much of an animal as the soul stone seems to be.

Her heart thumps in her ribcage; the fire begins to yawn in her belly, spreading right down to her fingers and toes.

When she looks down, her hands have a subtle golden glow, right under her skin.

“Antonia.”

A hand closes around her wrist, and the fire bleeds out of her slowly.

She shudders, right down to her fingers and toes, and she blinks, slow and wide.

“Sorry,” she says, sheepishly, and Nebula’s firm, blue fingers dig into her wrist. She shakes his head. “I can get it, the battery. I can get it.”

“Okay, weird,” Quill says, pointing at her.

Toni just sticks her tongue out at him, and then looks over. “Although, I have a feeling that might not be a problem anymore,” she says, vaguely.

“What, what are you talking about?” Rocket demands.

Toni sighs and leans back in her chair. “Your partner-in-crime seems to have taken care of things _for_ us,” she says, dryly, gesturing with a wave of her hand at Groot, who has already pried open the black box on the wall and pulled out the battery, brandishing the thing at them with a bright, gummy, innocuous smile.

“Son of a _bitch_!” Rocket snaps, banging a fist on the table.

The alarms start to blare, loud, red and yellow claxons that hurt her ears with their high-pitched ringing.

The prisoners raise their heads and start to look around.

Toni clambers to her feet, fingers still curled around the edge.

“Okay,” she says, gently enough that no one can hear what they’re saying, but firm enough that they’ll listen to her. “We’re going to get into that Watchtower. Gamora, Nebula, you go and get that security implant thingy in the guards’ arms. Rocket, you go and get that battery from your tree friend. Quill, go and get the prosthetic leg for whatever he needs it for.”

“And you?” Quill lifts an eyebrow.

Toni smiles her shark’s smile. “I’m gonna get into that Watchtower, and I’m gonna fly it.”

* * *

Gamora and Nebula head off, and Quill runs after the man with the prosthetic leg, while Rocket aims for Groot’s legs, shouting up at him with a wave of his little claws. Toni eyes the Watchtower in her sight, and takes a depe breath, climbing on top of the table. She jumps off and races towards it, and then, there’s a massive weight looming right in front of her, preventing her progress.

“Seriously?” she says, peering up at Drax.

Drax stares down at her stonily. “You are my best chance at removing Ronan’s head, woman. I will not let you leave so easily, unless you take me with you,” he tells her.

Guards surround them.

“Get on your knees!” they scream.

Toni just stares at Drax.

“Either you get out of my way, or I climb right over you,” she warns.

Drax folds his arms over his chest, an unmoveable brick wall.

“Get on your fucking knees or we’ll blow your brains out!”

Toni grinds her teeth, watches as the prisoners start to rush at each other, toppling each other to the ground and wailing on every body part they can find, watches as Gamora and Nebula rush across the length of the corridors above, knocking out guards as they do, watches as Groot and Rocket take on their own squadron of guards.

 _Oh, God, this is going to be a total shitfight_ , she thinks, mournfully.

“Fine,” she says, her voice clipped.

She stretches her hand out, and the fire seeps out of her, reaching for the guards.

“I’m sorry,” she says, rough with sorrow, blinking back tears, because this is what she’s become. “I know you’re just doing your jobs, but at the same time, you were going to let those prisoners do whatever the fuck they wanted with us because you don’t care. And if we don’t get out of here, a lot more people are going to die. Thanos will come here, himself, that’s not what you want.”

The guards watch, the weapons falling from their hands onto the ground, as their skin fades, crumbles, like they’re made of clay, and turns into dust, which floats up and up and up into the rafters high above.

Toni keeps her eyes on Drax, whose stare turns from furious and determined to something akin to terrified.

“What are you?” he says, breathlessly.

Toni flexes her hands, with a smile, ignore the way that guilt builds up in the pit of her throat like acid.

“I’m the one who’s going to kill Thanos,” she says, definitively.

* * *

Toni climbs up the length of the Watchtower, as the below erupts into a firefight, especially when Rocket is able to get up onto Groot’s shoulders and somehow gets his hands on a massive rifle, shooting indiscriminately, as Groot takes all of the bullets, seemingly able to regenerate any part of his flesh that gets struck.

She reaches the top, just where the metal turns into glass, and she grabs onto a handle, or rather, a piece of warped metal that looks like a handle, and she flips herself in mid-air, so she can slam her feet against the glass, cracking it wide open.

The guards on the other side have guns in their hands, but their faces are cast in fright.

She cracks open the glass, ignoring it as it bursts outwards, the shards cutting into her skin. She ignores the sting and climbs through, landing on the inside of the Watchtower, feet firmly planted on the ground.

“Hello, boys,” she says, with a smile like a naked sword, padding forward.

“Prisoner, return to your cell,” the guard at the front orders, his hands shaking as he lays it on the trigger.

“Listen, guys, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to fight me. If you were paying attention, then, you should know exactly what’s going to happen if you push me on this. All you have to do is walk away, go back to your… break room or whatever it is that you have, close your eyes and ears to everything that’s about to happen,” Toni says, patiently. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she straightens her shoulders. “But I will if I have to.”

The guards’ faces show their terror, and she never thought she would be the one to put such an expression on anyone’s faces.

 _They’re just trying to do their jobs; why are you hurting them_ , a small voice inside her, remnants of the child she used to be, asks, high and thin.

 _Because if I don’t, we’ll never leave this place, and Thanos will come here anyway. He’ll come here and kill them all and he won’t make it pleasant. This is mercy, and only if they push me towards it_ , she replies to that imaginary voice.

“Prisoner, go back to your cell,” the guard says again.

Toni stretches out her hands, ready to stretch out and turn them into dust, and then, she stops. She watches them cower in front of her, and something inside her just snaps, snaps like a taut piano line snapping, and there’s a rumble coming from her, within her chest, and her throat and her wrists, and they’re flung backwards, right out of the Watchtower.

She stares at her hands and the sight in amazement. “Huh, I didn’t know I could do that,” she mutters.

She sticks her head out of the broken glass, mindful of the sharp edges. “Hey, people, if we’re doing this, can you please get a move on?” she shouts down.

“Would you cool your horses, there are things to be done!” Rocket shouts back.

“Hurry the fuck up!”

“Woah, who broke the guards?”

Toni turns around just in time to see Quill racing into the Watchtower, clutching a prosthetic leg.

“He actually gave you his leg?” she asks, sceptically.

Quill shrugs. “Maybe he wanted a new one?”

Down below, Groot stretches up into the Watchtower, Rocket on his back, clutching at the battery, and then, Drax follows.

“So, everyone but Gamora and Nebula,” Toni says, her heart leaping straight into her throat.

“We don’t have much time here,” Rocket says, quietly.

“We aren’t leaving without them,” Toni snarls, baring her teeth at him.

They all take a step back, and she wonders what she looks like in the throes of anger, if she’s something strange and grotesque.

“We’re here, we’re here!”

Toni turns her head so fast she’s surprised that she didn’t pull a muscle. They’re both covered in blood and grinning from ear to ear, and she doesn’t know whether she should be disgusted or proud of the new comradery that appears to exist between the two of them.

 _Those who slay together, stay together_ , she muses.

“I feel like we’re missing dramatic theme music to our exit,” she mutters, making her way to the controls.

When she turns around, Gamora and Nebula are glaring at Drax, with that seething, bitter look in their eyes.

“Spare me your foul gazes, women,” Drax snaps at them.

Gamora rounds on her. “Why is this one here?” she asks, her voice ugly with derision.

Toni shrugs. “We’re going to kill Ronan and Thanos, aren’t we?” she points out. “Frankly, we can use all the muscle we can get.”

“We have you,” Nebula says, stubbornly, folding her arms over her chest. “That is plenty of muscle.”

Something soft and fond curls in her chest, and she lets out a smile, a genuine smile, stretching wide across her face until her cheeks hurt.

“You’re sweet, and he’s a whack-job, so he might be useful. If he’s not, we can always kill him,” she says, lightly.

Quill drops the prosthetic leg down onto the counter.

Rocket turns around, blinking slow and wide up at Quill. “Oh, I was just kidding about the leg,” he says, matter of fact. “I just need these two things.”

“What?” Quill snaps.

Rocket chuckles. “I thought it would be funny,” he says, giggling to himself. “What did he look like, limping around?”

Quill scowls absolute murder. “I had to transfer him thirty-thousand credits!”

Rocket just sniggers.

Toni takes a seat at the controls beside Rocket.

“Woah, sweetie, what do you think you’re doing?” Rocket asks, condescendingly.

Toni sends him a derisive glance through the thin slit of her eyes. “Would you shut the fuck up and let me fly?”

Drones surround the Watchtower and indiscriminately fire, their artillery cracking against the glass.

“How do you plan on escaping this?” Drax demands.

Quill ducks a particular heavy barrage. “Well, he’s got a plan, or is that another thing that you made up?” he asks, snidely.

“I have a plan, I have a plan,” Rocket mutters, fiddling with something underneath.

“No offence, and I don’t mean to make you obsolete, because clearly you’re smart but you’re also kind of a dick, and I supremely relate to that, but I think I might have a quick fix,” Toni murmurs.

Her hands clasp hard around the edge of the control panel, and the Iron Woman helmet forms in her lap, seemingly out of thin air. She pulls a stray wire out from underneath the panel, licks the withered, electrical end, and opens up the HUD, connecting it with the circuitry of the helmet.

After a moment, the eyes begin to shine bright.

“Okay, that’s officially creepy?” Rocket says, staring at the helmet.

“This is how we do it on Earth, boys,” Toni says, vaguely. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia?” JARVIS’s smooth voice rings through the Watchtower.

Quill and Rocket jump.

“Holy shit,” Quill says, breathlessly, staring at the Iron Woman helmet.

“Can you connect?” Toni asks, without missing a beat.

“I believe there is still some configuration required on the console of the ship,” JARVIS tells her.

“Joy,” Toni sighs. “Okay, then,” she murmurs, sticking her tongue out between her teeth and tapping the console purposefully.

She finds JARVIS’ connection and copies his coding into the Watchtower’s mainframe. The Watchtower beeps, slowly, with every passing second, and then, finally there is a single, thin, sharp sound, and she finally sees hears JARVIS’ voice come through the speakers within the Watchtower.

“Miss Antonia?” he says, uncertain and almost childlike.

“JARVIS,” Toni says, breathlessly, and her relief is instantaneous. “Oh, JARVIS, boy, am I glad to hear your voice, baby.”

“I am glad to hear your voice as well, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS replies, solemnly.

Behind her, she can feel the weight and heat of Drax’s scowl.

“Cease your hysterical yammering, woman, and relieve us from this irksome confinement,” he snaps.

“Yeah, I’ll have to agree with the walking thesaurus on that one,” Quill agrees.

Drax turns his anger on him. “Do not ever call me a thesaurus,” he says, a dangerous edge to his voice

Quill eyes him, carefully, fleetingly. “It's just a metaphor, dude,” he says, quickly.

Rocket waves a dismissive hand. “His people are completely literal, metaphors are gonna go over his head.”

“Nothing goes over my head,” Drax says, promptly. “My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”

Nebula sighs. “We’re going to die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy,” she mutters, just as the prison guards surround the watchtower, carrying larger guns this time around.

Quill licks his lips. “Those are some big guns,” he comments.

The head of the riot guard shouts. “On my command! Number one!”

One of the guards shoots his weapon, which hits one panel of the Watchtower’s glass, making it rattle and crack at the seams.

“Antonia, please tell me you can fly this.”

“JARVIS can,” Toni says, firmly. “Can’t you baby?”

“I can escape this confinement, yes, Miss Antonia. However, after we leave the airspace of this prison, you will need to direct me where to fly this vehicle,” JARVIS says, simply.

“Rocket can do that,” Toni says, cheerfully.

Rocket lifts an eyebrow. “I can?”

Toni peers down at him, her expression cast in disdain.

Rocket clears his throat. “Yeah, I can. I can.”

“Number two!”

Another guard shoots his weapon, which hits the other side of the Watchtower.

“I recognize this animal,” Drax muses. “We'd roast them over a flame pit as children. Their flesh was quite delicious.”

“Not helping!” Rocket grunts.

“Number three!”

Another shoots their weapon which hits another glass window of the Watchtower, leaving a massive crack.

“All fire on my command!”

Rocket is buried underneath the control panel, working as fast as he can to save them.

“Three! Two! One-”

And then, all of the guards outside start floating, as if pulled into the air by an invisible rope.

Toni stares at the sight for a moment, utterly outweighed by the amazement of it.

“You turned off the artificial gravity,” Gamora says, quietly, giving voice to what she had been thinking. “Everywhere but in here.”

“I told you I had a plan.”

Rocket’s fiddling with the controls disconnects the actual Watchtower from its base.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia?”

“Can you control those droids?” Toni asks, curiously.

“I suppose I can, miss. There is an existing connection between the droids and the Watchtower, yes. I can utilise that connection to draw them away-”

“No, actually, I was going to suggest that you attach them to the base of the Watchtower, so we can use them to fly out of the prison.”

“Oh,” JARVIS says, lamely. “Yes, I can do that.”


	19. xix.

The droids fly down and down until they’re hovering at the base, clinging there, and then, Rocket slams his little claw on a button, and the Watchtower darts into the air, crashing through the ceiling, lodging up against the wall, so that they can slip out and make for the little chamber where the guards had kept her stuff.

Toni, Nebula and Gamora collect their armour, their weapons, and Quill looks for his spaceship.

“There it is!” he calls out. “Get my ship. It's the Milano, the orange and blue one over in the corner.”

“The Milano?” Toni asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Like Alyssa Milano? Oh, my God, are you a _Charmed_ fan?” she teases.

Quill turns red. “Shut up,” he mutters.

“Antonia,” Nebula calls out.

She walks over to the other women, sees the Orb atop Nebula’s armour, and picks it up, feeling the weight of it in her palm.

It sings to her, calls for her, demands many things for her, and she shuts all her eyes to it, the grief slipping into her body like a disease, as she tangles her fingers over the orb, almost protectively, shielding it against her chest.

“They crumpled my pants up into a ball,” Rocket complains. “That's rude! They folded yours.”

“We have the orb; let’s go,” Toni says, quickly, her voice clipped.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Quill says, insistently.

“What?” Gamora demands, eyeing Quill with disdain.

“That bastard didn't put it back,” Quill mutters.

“Put what back?”

Peter shoves his things against Gamora’s chest. “Here, get them to the ship, I will be right back.”

Gamora’s brow furrows. “How are you gonna possibly...”

“Just keep the Milano close by,” Quill urges. “Go. Go!”

Peter runs off, and the three women are left staring, bemused, at one another. They grab their things and board the Milano, stumbling around in the cockpit as they wait for Peter.

“Racoon, did you-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rocket rolls his eyes. “I got your computer buddy transferred and all, I promise.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “JARVIS?” she calls out.

“Yes, Miss Antonia?” JARVIS replies, promptly.

Toni breathes a sigh of relief. “Nothing, baby; I’m just glad to hear your voice.”

“How's he gonna get to us?” Rocket snaps, pacing.

Gamora shrugs. “He declined to share that information with us.”

“Well, screw this, then!” Rocket says, decisively. “I ain't waiting around for some humie with a death wish. You got the orb, right?”

Gamora and Nebula’s eyes dart over to where Toni is standing, clutching at the orb like it’s an organ out of her body.

“Yes,” Toni says, rolling her eyes.

“If we don't leave now, we will be blown to bits,” Rocket points out, jumping up and down on his feet. “Screw Quill; if he can’t be fucked joining us, then, he gets left behind.”

“Wait,” Toni says, spotting something out the window.

It’s Quill, in his strange red spacesuit, with a metal gas mask covering his entire face, flying towards them. Quill boards the Milano, and then ends up, bent over, hands braced against his thighs, panting hard, his shoulders shaking.

“This one shows spirit,” Drax comments. “He shall make a keen ally in the battle against Ronan.” He turns to Quill. “Companion, what were you retrieving?”

Quill raises the Walkman.

Drax stares at the Walkman. “You're an imbecile,” he declares.

“Is that a Walkman?” Toni asks, her voice thin with horror, as she rocks the orb back and forth like a baby.

“Yeah, what of it?” Quill asks, chin aloft in the air.

“That’s disgusting,” she says, simply.

Quill narrows his eyes. “Why are you rocking the orb?” he asks, slowly.

Toni stops, staring down at the orb. “Never you mind,” she replies in the exact same tone he’d used towards her when she’d questioned him on the Walkman.

Quill opens his mouth to say something, when he catches sight of Rocket knee-deep in the ship’s insides.

“Woah, woah, woah!” he shouts, making for the racoon. “Yo, Ranger Rick! What are you doing? You can't take apart my ship without asking me!” He leans down by a strange-looking device on the grating. “See, what is this?” he demands.

“Don’t touch that, it’s a bomb,” Rocket says, suddenly.

Quill’s hand darts away from the device. “A bomb?” he asks, carefully.

“Yep.”

“And you leave it lying around?” Quill asks, his voice going high and thin.

Rocket lifts his head, instantly defensive. “I was gonna put it in a box.”

“What’s a box gonna do?” Quill says, incredulously.

Rocket pulls out a box in brightly coloured wrapping paper. “How about this one?”

“No!” Quill shouts, snatching it from his little claws. “Hey! Hey! Leave it alone!”

“Why?” Rocket asks, peering at him, curiously. “What is it?”

“Shut up,” Quill mutters, staring at the present like it’s about to explode in his hands.

“Hey!” Rocket shouts, yanking something large and dripping with strange, green oil out of the ship.

Quill scrunches his face up. “What is that?”

Rocket takes a deep breath. “That's for if things get really hardcore. Or if you wanna blow up moons.”

“No one’s blowing up moons,” Gamora says, sternly.

Rocket scowls. “You just wanna suck the joy out of everything.”

“So, listen,” Quill drawls, his sly voice directed towards the three women. “I’m gonna need your buyer's coordinates.”

“We’re heading in the right direction for now,” Nebula says, quickly, after Toni quickly sends her a warning look.

Quill narrows his eyes. “If we're gonna work together, you might want to try trusting me a little bit,” he points out.

Gamora lifts an eyebrow. “And how much do you trust me?”

Quill’s hands make for the orb in Toni’s hands. She bats him away with a terrible scowl, shaking her head, mutinous.

“Touch it, and I’m cutting off your fingers one by one,” she warns.

Quill swallows hard, clearly taking her threat seriously. He turns to Gamora, clearly have her in his line of sight rather than the other two _Weird Sisters_ , as they’d been named.

“I'd trust you a lot more if you told me what this was. Because I'm guessing it's some kind of weapon,” he says, slyly.

“We don’t know what it is,” Gamora says, lifting her chin up, defiantly.

Drax perks up. “If it's a weapon, we should use it against Ronan.”

He makes a grab for the orb in Toni’s hands, and suddenly, Gamora and Nebula are shouldering her, stepping in front of her like indomitable walls.

“Don’t touch the orb again,” Nebula threatens, her voice like a knife’s sharp edge, her entire body vibrating.

She hadn’t forgotten the prisoners’ assault of them in the Kyln.

“You’ll destroy us all,” Gamora says, easily.

Drax’s face contorts into an expression of bitter, seething hatred. “Or just you, murderess!”

Gamora growls low under her breath, and she steps up to face him, her hands clenching into fists by her side. “I let you live once, princess!”

Drax meets her nose to nose. “I am not a princess!” he roars.

“Hey!” Quill says, sliding in between their bodies. “Nobody is killing anybody on my ship! We're stuck together until we get the money.”

Drax’s scowl deepens. “I have no interest in money,” he says, and then, storms off.

“Great,” Quill says, eyeing Drax carefully out of the corner of his eye. “That means more money for the five of us.”

Groot makes a rumbling sound from his chest, like the low snarl of a lion, from his place in the corner.

Quill winces. “For the six of us. Partners,” he offers.

Gamora takes a deep breath and stares at Toni and Nebula in turn.

Toni shrugs. “I have no dog in this fight. You know what I want out of all this,” she says, flatly.

Gamora turns to Nebula.

“What are you looking at me for?” Nebula asks, defensively, folding her arms over her chest. “I want to kill Thanos; that’s all I’m here for.”

Gamora’s throat flexes, and she nods, turning back to Quill. “We have an agreement, but we would never be partners with the likes of you,” she says, frankly. “I'll tell the buyer we're on our way.” She gestures for Nebula and Toni to walk out with her, not before slinging one, last parting jab. “And Quill, your ship is filthy.”

They walk up the stairs to the cockpit of the ship.

* * *

“Heads up! We’re inbound,” Rocket calls out.

Toni walks over to the giant window, just as the ship begins to near Knowhere, the entire planet the image of a giant severed head.

“I must say, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, through the ship’s speakers. “I don’t particularly like the landscape of the places you seem to visit nowadays.”

Toni sighs and leans forward on the edge of the console. “We’ve come a long way from the French Riviera, haven’t we, J?”

“That we have, miss. That we have.”

Nebula nudges her in the side with the sharp point of her elbow, too rough to be a love-tap but too gentle to be an actual blow (Toni’s seen what damage Nebula can do with that elbow of hers, and she’s not interested in becoming another victim).

“What is this French Riviera?” Nebula asks, her brow furrowed, her tongue stumbling over some of the unfamiliar syllables.

“It’s a vacation spot on Earth,” Toni explains, with a soft smile. “I’ll take you there one day.”

“Will there be human men?” Nebula asks, thoughtfully.

Toni grins and throws her arm around Nebula’s thin shoulders. “There will be many human men in skimpy swimwear too.”

“Good,” Nebula huffs.

“Woah,” Quill says, as he joins them at the window.

“What is it?” Drax asks, almost awed, but terrified in equal measure.

“It’s called Knowhere,” Gamora replies. “The severed head of an ancient celestial being. Be wary headed in, rodent. There are no regulations whatsoever here.”

The Milano slowly descends into the mining colony.

“Hundreds of years ago, the Tivan Group sent workers in to mine the organic matter within the skull. The bone, brain tissue, spinal fluid. All rare resources, highly valued in black markets across the galaxy. It's dangerous and illegal work, suitable only for outlaws.”

Once the ship lands, the two of them climb out, and the air smells of stale smoke, like tobacco and sewage mixed together, and Toni screws her face up.

“Well, I come from a planet of outlaws,” Quill declares. “Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde and John Stamos.”

“I’ve slept with John Stamos,” Toni says, suddenly, before thinking too deep about what she was about to say.

Quill just stares at her. “You did _what_?”

“I slept with John Stamos,” Toni says, slowly, meeting his eyes. “We were young, in our twenties. It was great. He was great.”

Drax looks between the two of them. “This Earth sounds like a place which I would like to visit.”

“Yeah, you should,” Quill says, vaguely, as a bunch of kids surround them, trying to get past.

“Excuse me,” one of them pipes up, his voice high and thin.

“Watch your wallets,” Quill mutters to them.

A little girl peers up at Toni. “Can you spare any units?” she asks, her voice soft.

Toni’s heart lurches in her chest; before she even knows what she’s doing, a pile of units is forming in the palm of her hand, and she’s handing it over to the little girl. The girl beams up at her with a gummy smile, missing half her teeth, and runs off.

When Toni looks up, Gamora and Nebula are staring at her.

“What?” she asks, defensively.

Nebula’s nose scrunches up. “You are a bleeding heart,” she says.

They walk on, but Toni catches Gamora’s arm, pulling her back. “Where are we going?” she asks, quietly. “We don’t actually have a buyer, remember?”

“Taneleer Tivan,” Gamora says. “He is called The Collector. As you can probably tell, he collects strange and exotic artefacts from all over the universe. If anyone will give us a good price and be able to shield the orb, it will be him.”

“We don’t want to shield the orb, though,” Toni reminds her, her voice edging towards sharpness. “We want to use it to kill Thanos.”

“The power stone alone might not be enough,” Gamora urges. “We will have use for it one day, but I think we should have some place to keep it safe, keep everyone safe from it.”

“We need to kill Thanos,” Nebula says, sternly. “That is the only reason I joined you two fools. If we are not going to use this stone to kill Thanos-”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “What, you’ll go back to him?” she taunts.

“Of course not,” Nebula huffs, folding her arms over her chest. “I am just saying that on very few occasions do such weapons fall right into our hands. Parting with it would be foolhardy. We should use it against Ronan and Thanos, kill them both and rid the universe of their poison.”

“She has a point,” Toni admits.

“And then, Thanos will come after us because he knows we have the stone,” Gamora protests.

Nebula smiles, sharp enough to draw blood. “Good,” she says, feline and contented. “Let him come.”

Gamora’s scowl deepens.

Toni senses an argument brewing between the sisters and neatly interjects herself in between them. “We don’t have to come to any decisions right now,” she says, patiently, her voice smooth like a slow honey drip. “What we can do is go and talk to this Taneleer Tivan, see what he’s like. If he seems like the trustworthy sort, maybe, we can consider leaving it with him. The money is an incentive.”

Nebula makes a disgusted sound. “I am not doing this for money.”

“No,” Gamora says, derisively. “You’re doing this for revenge.”

Nebula grinds her teeth. She leans forward, baring her teeth. “You’re doing this for the same reason I am. Don’t pretend that you’re better than me.”

“Stop it,” Toni snaps. “Thanos is the enemy, not us. If we’re going to kill him, we can’t lose each other in the process. You’re sisters; act like it.”

Nebula rounds on her. “What would you know?” she demands.

Toni takes a step forward towards her. “There is someone I love very much on Earth, thinking that I’m dead, and I would leave the rest of the universe to Thanos’ tender mercies if I could see him again,” she says, honestly. “You two… you have so much fucking baggage, but you still have each other. Even if you can’t love each other, you both hate Thanos enough to bond, don’t you think?”

Nebula and Gamora exchange a look and immediately turn away from each other, as if embarrassed.

Toni sighs. “Children. I spend time with children,” she mutters to herself.

* * *

“Your buyer’s in there?” Rocket asks, sceptically, nodding at the bar that Gamora walks towards.

Gamora glares down at the racoon. “We are to wait here for his representative,” she says, haughtily, just as a bouncer throws one of the drunk patrons out of the bar, onto the street, shouting _get out of here_!

“This is no respectable establishment,” Drax snarls. “What do you expect us to do while we wait?”

Minutes later, Drax and Rocket and Groot are halfway to plastered and vigorously throwing dice.

“Yes, yes!” Drax shouts.

“Yahoo!” Rocket whoops.

“My Orloni has won, as I win at all things! Now, let's put more of this liquid into our bodies,” Drax declares.

“That’s the first thing you said that wasn’t bat-shit crazy!” Rocket tells him, reaching up and smacking him on the back.

Toni watches them with a smile at the bar, sipping at something clear and tasting of alcohol, while Nebula eyes her drink with no small amount of disdain.

“This seems like a worthless exercise,” Nebula tells her, huffing in impatience.

Toni sighs. “Apparently, Taneleer Tivan is making us wait.”

Nebula’s scowl deepens. “We don’t have a deal with Tivan,” she grinds out. “I don’t understand why we don’t take this orb and go straight to Thanos and Ronan and kill them both and be done with this.”

Toni shrugs. “Maybe because we want to find the other infinity stones and use the things that he wants the most in the world to remove him from this universe,” she offers.

Nebula looks at her, her lips pressing into a thin line. “That seems like a foolish plan,” she tells her, solemn as the grave.

Toni offers a half-smile.

Before she can say anything, two aliens, both orange skin, like the shard of a sunset, and fins on top of their heads, saddle up to the bar, their movements and speech slurred with drink.

“Hey, baby,” one of the aliens say to Nebula, leaning coyly across the bar. “What d’you say we get out of here and I show you all the best parts of Knowhere?”

“Let me guess,” Toni chimes in, her voice dry as sawdust. “One of the best parts of Knowhere is your penis or whatever anatomical part of your body resembles a penis?”

The alien looks at her, confused. “What is a penis?”

Toni rolls her eyes.

The alien turns back to Nebula, his hand landing on her shoulder. “What d’you say, baby?” he leans in, his voice just above a purr.

Nebula eyes the hand on her shoulder like the appendage is nothing more than a cockroach – Toni doubts she would look at any of the alien’s other appendages with any more kindness.

Nebula knocks the hand off her shoulder and pins his arm behind her back, caging him against the bar, with her knee pressing into his spine.

“Touch me, or touch any girl in this bar like that unless she expressly asks you to, and I will remove your liver and make you wear it on that fin of yours,” she says, a dark, dangerous edge to her voice.

“Hey, what the fuck is your problem?” the alien demands. “I was just being friendly.”

“Let him go, you bitch!” his friend snaps at Nebula, his hands fidgeting by his side, like he doesn’t know what to say.

Nebula’s hand lashes out and grabs the other alien by the balls, her wrist twisting. The alien lets out a pained shriek.

“Apologise,” she says, sternly.

The alien lets out a garbled noise.

“Apologise,” she says, her voice louder, twisting further.

“Sorry, sorry,” the alien squeals out, sounding like a stuck pig.

“And you?” Nebula says, turning to the first alien.

His eyes widen and he takes a visible step back. “Hey, lady, I didn’t do _anything_!”

Nebula stalks towards him, her hands planted on her hips. “You approached me, thinking that a woman sitting at a bar with company would be willing to acquiesce to your desires. You were arrogant and you were presumptive. Apologise, or I might just decide to cut that fin off.”

The alien swallows hard. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for disturbing you, both of you. I’m sorry,” he babbles.

Toni pushes herself back in her seat, so they can see her unimpressed face. “That’s code work for _get the fuck lost_ , dudebros,” she tells them, firmly.

The aliens run away from the two women, and Nebula settles back in her chair, feline and contented.

“That was fun,” she says, happily.

* * *

Toni hears Gamora shriek, _no!_ , and she’s surging off the bar stool, Nebula hot on her heels, disappearing off into the balcony. She finds Quill pinned up against the balcony, his eyes big and wide in his face, with Gamora putting a sharp, glinting knife to his throat.

“Ow, what the hell!” Quill wheezes, scrabbling for purchase against the balcony.

“I know who you are, Peter Quill,” Gamora snarls, getting in his face. “And I am not some starry-eyed waif here to succumb to your... your pelvic sorcery!”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Toni moans, covering her face with her hand.

“That is not what is happening here,” Quill grunts. He looks over Gamora’s shoulder to stare pleadingly at Toni, determining that she was the reasonable one out of the Weird Sisters. “That is _really_ not what is happening here.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure,” Toni says, dryly.

“Oh, no,” Quill says, suddenly, staring at something further off her shoulder.

Toni turns around to see Drax grappling with Groot in an effort to get to Rocket, who has a large, terrifying gun pointed at the other alien.

“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters, and all four rush in.

Gamora drags Drax off Groot, while Toni gets Groot to his feet and Nebula shoulders Rocket, her entire body taut with tension.

“Stop it!” Gamora snaps, as Drax tries to desperately to get out of her grip.

Rocket aims his gun at Drax, but Quill steps in between them.

“Woah, woah!” he says, putting his hands up. “What are you doing?”

“This vermin speaks of affairs he knows nothing about!” Drax snarls, his mouth pulled back to reveal long, sharp incisors.

“That is true!” Rocket slurs, loudly, to the crowd gathered around them, desperate to see some blood.

“He has no respect!”

“That is also true!”

“Hold on! Hold on!” Quill cajoles.

“Keep calling me vermin, tough guy!” Rocket barks at Drax. “You just wanna laugh at me like everyone else!”

“Rocket, you’re drunk,” Quill soothes. “Alright? No one's laughing at you.”

“He thinks I’m some stupid thing!” Rocket shouts, his voice high and thin. “He does! Well, I didn't ask to get made! I didn't ask to be torn apart, and put back together, over and over and turned into some... some little monster!”

“Rocket, no one’s calling you a monster,” Quill insists.

“He called me vermin!” Rocket protests. “ _She_ called me rodent!” He eyes Gamora with no small amount of bitter, seething hatred.

Toni scrunches up her face in understanding. Gamora flings a disbelieving look her way.

“What?” she says, defensively. “You did call him a rodent,” she points out.

“Well, let's see if you can laugh after five or six good shots to your frickin' face!”

Rocket raises his gun at Drax again, just as Quill stands in front of him.

“No, no, no, no!” Quill shouts. “Four billion units. Rocket! Come on, man. Hey! Suck it up for one more lousy night and you're rich.”

Rocket hesitates for a moment and then, he lowers his weapon.

“Fine. But I can't promise when all this is over, I'm not gonna kill every last one of you jerks.”

“See?” Quill says, throwing his hands up in the air, incredulously. “That’s exactly why none of you have any friends! Five seconds after you meet somebody, you're already trying to kill them!”

“Speak for yourself,” Toni corrects, sniffing haughtily. “I have plenty of friends, and that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t kill you all anyway.”

Drax makes an angry noise between his teeth. “We have travelled halfway across the quadrant, and Ronan is no closer to being dead.”

He turns on his feet and storms out of the bar in anger.

“Drax!” Quill shouts after him.

“Let him go,” Gamora says, sternly. “We don’t need him.”

“Milady Gamora,” a woman simpers, coming up to their side. “I'm here to fetch you for my master.”

* * *

The Collector’s home is a museum, full of eccentricities and fauna and relics and even people, trapped in large glass cages, to be poked and prodded and pointed at.

“Okay, this isn't creepy at all,” Rocket mutters under his breath.

“We house the galaxy's largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manner,” Carina, the Collector’s maidservant, says in a dazed, absent voice, as if she’s not quite there.

She takes them into the Collector’s inner room, where he’s waiting for them.

“I present to you, Taneleer Tivan, the Collector.”

Gamora swallows hard beside Toni, and finally, she plasters on a smile and walks forward.

“Oh, my dear Gamora. How wonderful to meet in the flesh,” the Collector says, sending a surreptitious wink over Gamora’s head to Nebula and Toni, and then, he kisses her hand.

“Let's bypass the formalities, Tivan. We have what we discussed.”

The Collector’s eyes drag from Gamora to Groot. “What is that thing here?” he asks, awed.

“I am Groot,” Groot replies, promptly.

“I never thought I'd meet a Groot,” the Collector says, walking around Groot in a circle, surveying him from every angle. “Sir, you must allow me to pay you now so that I may own your carcass. At the moment of your death, of course,” he says, quickly.

Toni’s face contorts with distaste.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, simply.

“Why?” Rocket demands. “So he could turn you into a frickin' chair?”

The Collector peers at Rocket. “That’s your pet?” he clarifies.

“His what?” Rocket barks like a building crashing, his hand going to grab his weapon, as the Collector chuckles.

Gamora quickly intervenes before a fight can break out.

“Tivan, we have been halfway around the galaxy, retrieving this orb,” she says, sternly.

“Very well, then,” the Collector sighs. “Let us see what you brought.”

Gamora looks at Toni purposefully, who finally sighs, and the orb forms out of nothing in the palm of her hand. The Collector peers at her, his eyes glinting with interest, and her lip curls up, sharply, baring the razor line of her teeth.

“I’m not someone who suits a cage,” she snarls. “I suggest you look elsewhere, or I might be tempted to torch this fucking museum.”

The Collector pales but remains upright, faultlessly polite, and she hands over the Orb. The Collector peers at it, and then, his eyes brighten.

“Oh, my new friends,” he says, with a passion that borders on madness. He takes the Orb with him to a strange device, in which he places the Orb, two claws curving around either side of it. “Before creation itself, there were six singularities.” The claws unlock and open the orb. “Then, the universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots. Infinity Stones. These stones, it seems, can only be brandished by beings of extraordinary strength. Observe.”

A hologram appears from the device, almost like displaying the power stone’s kinetic memory, showing a being larger than a planet using the power stone to turn an entire planet to ash.

“These carriers can use the stone to mow down entire civilizations like wheat in a field.”

“There's a little pee coming out of me right now,” Quill whispers, loudly, the only voice heard in the entire chamber.

The Weird Sisters, as they’ve now so eloquently been dubbed, send him equally disgusted looks.

The Collector ignores him. “Once, for a moment, a group was able to share the energy amongst themselves, but even they were quickly destroyed by it.”

The power stone is bright lilac and bursting with light, each edge of it gleaming.

“Beautiful. Beyond compare,” the Collector says, breathlessly.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Rocket says, dismissively. “We're all very fascinated, whitey. But we'd like to get paid.”

The Collector peers at him. “How would you like to get paid?” he asks, curiously.

Rocket scowls. “What do you think, fancy man? Units!” he barks like a building crashing.

“Very well, then,” the Collector says, demurely.

The Collector bows low and backs away, going off to get the money. As he leaves, his servant, Carina, fascinated by the Infinity Stone, walks towards it.

“Carina. Stand back,” the Collector snaps.

“I will no longer be your slave!” Carina screams, flinging an awful glare at the Collector.

The Collector’s eyes widen, and he makes a grab for the girl, shouting _no!_ , just as her fingers curl around the stone, triggering an explosion that destroys her body, as well as the entire archive. Toni breathes, just for a moment, and a thin gold sheen wraps around her and Nebula and Gamora, like a shield. Groot grabs Rocket and runs out of the place, as it explodes, and Quill hides out under a table, under the destruction is over.

Once the sound fades, and the archive is left burning, Quill comes out, slowly.

“What the fuck?” Quill demands.

Toni steps forward and quickly closes up the orb, tucking it back into her void.

“I should not have done that,” Gamora says, quietly, as they walk out of the archive.

Toni sighs. “What are you talking about?”

Gamora makes a soft, unimpressed noise at the back of her throat.

“Come near the Collector. Now, he is interested, and he knows that we have the stone, and we just blew up a damn museum, and everyone will know what the power stone is capable of and-” Gamora shakes her head. “How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was within the orb?”

“Calm down,” Toni soothes, gripping Gamora by the shoulders. “Don’t stress. We’ll fix it.”

“Do you still have it?” Rocket demands.

“Yes,” Toni says, slowly. “What were you expecting, leave it there?”

Rocket shakes his head, disgusted. “I can’t believe you were holding that thing this whole time.”

Gamora closes her eyes. “We have to bring this to the Nova Corps. There's a chance they can contain it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Rocket asks, incredulously. “We're _wanted_ by the Nova Corps! Just give it to Ronan!”

Quill scowls. “What, so he can destroy the galaxy?”

Toni turns to look at him, intrigued – he changed his mind quick.

Rocket returns the glower. “What are you, some saint all of a sudden? What has the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?” he asks, gaping at him disbelief.

“Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!” Quill shouts back.

Gamora seizes Quill by the shoulders, shielding him from Rocket and being the only thing that he can focus on (Toni wonders if she’s seen the same things that she’s seen, the way that Peter’s eyes follow Gamora, like he blinks slowly just to make sure that she’s still there).

“Peter, listen to me. We cannot allow the stone to fall into Ronan's hands. We have to go back to your ship and deliver it to Nova,” she insists.

“Right, right, okay,” Peter nods. “I think you're right.” He pauses, and Toni feels dread sink into her gut. “Or we could give it to somebody who's not going to arrest us, who's really nice for a whole lot of money.”

Toni stares at him, gaping at him in disbelief.

“I think it's a really good balance between both of your points of view,” he offers.

“You’re despicable,” Gamora declares, taking a step back, away from him, his face curdling in disgust.

“Dishonourable. Faithless!” Gamora shouts.

She turns to walk, and then, all three women watch as a ship descends into the streets of Knowhere, a ship that they recognise.

“Oh, no,” Gamora says, breathlessly.

“At last!”

Toni turns in the direction of the sound of the dark, loud voice, seeing Drax, standing in front of Ronan’s ship, with his knives thrust out at the sides.

“I shall meet my foe and destroy him,” Drax says, satisfied.

“You called Ronan?” Quill shouts at him, incensed.

“Quill!”

Everyone turns in the direction of the call, only to find a blue-skinned man with a metal fin atop his head, with men backing his shoulders.

“Don’t you move, boy!” the Ravager warns.

Toni curls her hands around Gamora’s and Nebula’s wrist. “Time to go,” she says, hurriedly, just as Ronan steps down from his ship.

And then, they’re running, just as they heard Drax call for Ronan.

Toni finds them each a mining pod, and Gamora turns to her.

“Let me take the Orb,” she urges.


	20. xx.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: mentions of racism, Hitler mentions, implied/referenced domestic violence,

“What?” Toni asks, sceptically.

“They will expect you to have it if they catch us,” Gamora says, quickly. “Ronan already disliked you, and Thanos will have painted a picture of you being the leader of our rebellion.”

Toni grinds her teeth. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, give it to me,” Gamora says, firmly.

Toni looks at Nebula, who shrugs.

“She has a point. If it were me chasing us, I would go after you,” she says, simply.

Toni mulls it over for a moment, and then, finally nods. “Fine, we’ll each take a pod, and we’ll need to get to the Milano. Once we’re there, we should be able to run. We’ll keep them off you.”

“How? We have got no weaponry on these things,” Nebula points out.

“These pods are industrial grade; they are nearly indestructible,” Toni says, shrugging.

Gamora and Nebula looks at her, sceptically. “Not against necroblasts, they are not.”

“That is not what I’m saying,” Toni says, slyly.

She climbs into her pod, waits for Gamora and Nebula to join her, and they fly off, in search of the Milano.

Ronan’s soldiers follow them, while Ronan himself is distracted, and Toni navigates her pod right into the two ships chasing them, crashing into each one and destroying both of them. Just as another one comes to shoot Gamora, Toni flies straight at it, making it explode in a rain of fire and metal.

“Oh, so that is what you meant,” Nebula’s voice comes through the pod.

“Uh-huh,” Toni says, her tone absent.

“I’m trapped!” Gamora shouts from ahead. “I can't make it to the Milano, I have to head out.”

“What, no!” Toni protests. “Don’t do that! These things aren't meant to go out there.”

But Gamora remains steadfast, taking her pod beyond Knowhere’s atmosphere. The pod begins to jerk in mid-flight, and then, Toni watches, with her heart in her throat, as one of Ronan’s soldiers gets a lucky shot and manages to blow up Gamora’s ship.

A scream tears from Toni’s throat at the sight, joined in cacophony by Nebula as well, staring as the pod comes apart in the middle of space, leaving Gamora floating absently.

The Orb flutters away from her hands, and then, Ronan’s soldier, the one that had blown Gamora up, steals between metal pincers that jut out from the base of the pod.

He flies away, satisfied, leaving destruction and grief in his wake.

Toni clutches onto the edge of the console and flies her pod forward, even if she knows it’s reckless, stupid, her heart beating like a jackhammer in her chest, her throat numb and tears stinging at her eyes.

She reaches for Gamora’s soul, feels the still-living thing slip away from her fingers with each and every passing moment. She tries to claw it back, to keep it between her fingers, the slippery thing, and shove it back into her body, but it escapes with every beat.

“Come on,” Rocket says, solemnly, his voice melancholic. “Her body mods should keep her alive a couple more minutes, but there's nothing we can do for her. These pods aren't meant to be out here. In a second, we're gonna be in the same boat.”

Toni slams her fist down onto the console, cracking it and splintering an edge from the unit.

Nebula snarls in her ears, a sound that stirs a clawing sensation underneath her breast.

“I will _not_ leave my sister,” she swears, her voice dark and full of promise.

“Quill, come on,” Rocket urges, turning his pod and starting to leave.

“Oh, fuck it!” Peter shouts.

“Quill?” Rocket says, uncertainly.

“Yondu! Yondu! This is Quill! My coordinates are two-two-seven-K-three-two-four,” Peter says, quickly.

Her hand hovers on the edge of the navigation controls, and just when she’s about to push forward, she watches as Peter flies out ahead of them, without a pod, with that gas mask covering his entire face.

“Quill, don't be ridiculous,” Rocket snaps. “Get back into your pod! You can't fit two people in there, you're gonna die.”

Peter finally reaches Gamora, cradling her body close to his chest, as if she were something precious to him.

And then, he takes off his mask.

“You’ll die in seconds!” Rocket shouts. “Quill!”

Peter puts his mask onto Gamora’s head, and she starts to breath, slow and painfully, and then, steadier.

Her soul slips back into her body, creeping and crawling until it settles inside, contented and satisfied.

Before Toni even knows what to do, Yondu’s ship arrives and grasps Peter and Gamora in a thin, shining cage, lifting them inside.

“Fuck!” Toni shouts, slamming her fist into the wall of the pod, which shudders under her knuckles.

“Antonia, what do we do?” Nebula asks, haltingly.

“We go back,” Toni says, grinding her teeth. “We have to go back, get the Milano, and go after them. Come on, _come on_.”

* * *

They land their pods back on the surface of the planet, climbing out.

Nebula goes straight for the jugular, or to be more precise, Drax’s jugular.

“You miserable idiot!” she snarls, her hands stretched out like claws. “This is all your fault!”

Toni wraps an arm around Nebula’s waist, pulling her back before she can wrap her hands around Drax’s throat and squeeze hard.

“They’re all idiots!” Rocket declares. “Quill just got himself captured!” He turns his beady, dark eyes onto Drax. “None of this ever would have happened if you didn't try to single-handedly take on a frickin’ army!” he shouts. “Oh, boo-hoo-hoo,” he mock-sobs. “ _My wife and child are dead_.”

Groot silently gasps in shock at Rocket’s callousness.

“Oh, I don’t care if it’s mean!” Rocket snaps, his voice as destructive as a building crashing. “Everybody's got dead people! That's no excuse to get everybody else dead along the way! Come on, Groot. Ronan has the stone. The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.” He turns to Nebula and Toni. “If you two were smart, you’d join us.”

“We have to stop Ronan,” Toni whispers.

“Maybe they’re right,” Nebula says, quietly.

Toni looks at her, sharply. “We have to stop Ronan,” she says, insistently.

“He has the power stone,” Nebula tells her, sharply.

“I _know_ that,” Toni growls. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t stop him.”

Nebula steps up to her. “You saw what that thing did to Tivan’s shop. What do you think Ronan will do to us with it?”

Toni looks down at her and flexes it.

She doesn’t know, even with all of her newness, if she’d be able to actually withstand the power stone in its full glory, when it was being used to hurt her. Would she just fall apart at the seams, turn to dust under its blow, or could she actually survive it, could she shield herself from it somehow?

“There are other people in this universe,” she says, quietly. “And they shouldn’t be left at the mercy of genocidal maniacs because we were stupid.”

Nebula grinds her teeth and looks away. “We can’t help everyone.”

“Nebula,” Toni begins, her voice no more than a scold.

Groot rises to his feet in defiance.

“I am Groot,” he says, his voice low and rough, like sandpaper.

Rocket stares at him, incredulously. “Save them? How?”

“I am Groot.”

“I know they're the only friends that we ever had, but there's an army of Ravagers around them. And there's only four of us!”

Drax rises and stands beside Groot, his face leached out of any remnant of anger. “Five,” he replies.

Rocket grunts in anger and frustration, turning and starting to kick the ground with his feet. “Aw, you're making me beat up grass!”

“This is foolish, I’m not doing it,” Nebula decides and starts to walk away.

Toni reaches forward and curls her fingers around her wrist, keeping her still. “Wait, just wait!” she insists. “Gamora’s your sister.”

“Gamora is probably dead already,” Nebula snaps, something sharp and painful lurking behind her dark, almost black eyes.

“You don’t believe that,” Toni says, softly.

“She was already mostly dead before Quill even got his hands on her. What, you think those trash degenerates are going to leave any piece of her alive, when they are done with Quill? No, my sister is dead.”

She tries to wrench away from Toni, but Toni holds her fast, keeping her pinned.

“No, she is not,” she says, baring her teeth. “I can feel her, I can see her, _she’s alive_.”

Nebula’s face changes. “She’s alive?” she asks, softly, her face unsure, not wanting to believe her.

“Gamora’s alive,” Toni promises. “We have to go and save her.”

* * *

They have the Ravagers’ ship in sight of the Milano, and Rocket’s hands hover around the controls for the weapons.

“What do you say, should we give them a sharp awakening?” Rocket asks, gleefully.

Nebula reaches down and presses a slim finger against the button to fire one of the ship’s blasters. The blasters fire on the Ravagers’ ship, making the entire vessel shudder.

Rocket turns to glower at her. “Seriously?” he asks, offended.

Nebula shrugs. “They would not return Gamora without a sharp awakening.”

Rocket shakes his head and turns his attention back to the speaker, activating it. “Attention, idiots.”

Toni rolls her eyes.

“The lunatic on top of this craft is holding a Hadron Enforcer. It's a weapon of my- _our_ design. If you don't hand over our companions now, he's gonna tear your ship a new one. A very big new one!” Rocket pauses for effect. “I'm giving you to the count of five. Five, four, three...”

“Rocket, it's me, for God sakes! We figured it out! We're fine!” Quill shouts back, his voice crackling through the speaker.

“Oh, hey, Quill,” Rocket says, his shoulders slumping in disappointment. “What's going on?”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Toni says, as she paces around the Milano. “You call that _figured it out_? We’re gonna rob the guys who just beat us senseless?”

Quill scowls, immediately. “Oh, you want to talk about senseless? How about trying to save us by blowing us up?” he demands.

Rocket returns the scowl with one of his own. “We were only gonna blow you up if they didn't turn you over!” he protests.

“And how on earth were they gonna turn us over when you only gave them a count of five?”

“Well, we didn't have time to work out the minutiae of the plan. This is what we get for acting altruistically!”

“I am Groot.”

“They _are_ ungrateful,” Rocket agrees.

“What’s important now is that we get the Ravagers’ army to help us save Xandar,” Gamora says, earnestly.

“We’re not seriously contemplating giving the power stone to Yondu, are we?” Toni asks, slowly, needing confirmation. “Because I feel like that would be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.”

Rocket nods, insistently. “He’ll just sell it to somebody even worse.”

Peter waves it off. “We’ll figure that part out later.”

Gamora clasps her hand around Toni’s. “We have to stop Ronan.”

“How?” Nebula demands.

Peter takes a deep breath. “I have a plan.”

“ _You’ve_ got a plan?” Rocket asks, sceptically, showing exactly what he thinks about Peter’s competency.

Peter lifts his chin in defiance. “Yes.”

Rocket narrows his eyes. “First of all, you're copying me from when I said I had a plan.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “No, I'm not. People say that all the time, it's not that unique of a thing to say.”

“Secondly,” Rocket stresses. “I don’t even believe you have a plan.”

“I have _part_ of a plan!” Peter snaps.

Drax sighs. “What percentage of a plan do you have?”

Gamora’s face darkens. “You don't get to ask questions after the nonsense you pulled on Knowhere,” she snarls, her mouth pulling away from her teeth.

Drax looks offended by her fury. “I just saved Quill,” he protests.

Peter snorts. “We've already established that you destroying the ship that I'm on is _not_ saving me.”

Drax frowns. “When did we establish it?”

Peter scowls. “Like three seconds ago!”

“I wasn’t listening; I was thinking of something else,” Drax explains.

Gamora makes a sound of frustration between her clenched teeth.

“She’s right; you don’t get an opinion,” Rocket says, ending the debate. He turns to Peter. “What percentage?”

“I don’t know, _twelve_ percent.”

Toni blinks, and she has the flash of a memory of sitting in a penthouse apartment with a redheaded woman, and a bottle of champagne between them, laughing. Grief swells through her body, right into her throat, but she stifles it, shoves it down.

Rocket starts laughing, thin and high and false.

“That’s a fake laugh,” Peter declares.

“It’s real!” Rocket protests.

“Totally fake,” Peter scoffs.

“That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life because that is not a plan.”

“It is a one-way road to our deaths,” Nebula stresses.

“It’s barely a concept,” Gamora agrees.

Peter looks at her, wounded. “You’re taking _their_ side?”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket glowers at him. “So what if it's better than eleven percent? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Thank you, Groot,” Peter says, smugly. “Thank you.” He scowls at the rest of them. “See? Groot's the only one of you who has a clue.”

To support his point, Groot is busy chewing on a leaf growing out from his shoulder. Peter grimaces, realising that it was the wrong horse to back on, while Rocket chuckles. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Guys. Come on. Yondu is gonna be here in two seconds. He expects to hear this big plan of ours. I need your help.” Peter sighs. “I look around at us, you know what I see? Losers.”

“Fuck you, dude,” Toni replies, cheerfully.

“I mean, like, folks who have lost stuff. And we have. Man, we have. All of us. Our homes, our families, normal lives. And, usually, life takes more than it gives, but not today. Today, it's given us something. It has given us a chance,” Peter says, earnestly.

“To do what?” Drax asks, confused.

“To give a shit,” Peter snaps. “For once, _not_ run away. I, for one, am not gonna stand by and watch as Ronan wipes out billions of innocent lives.”

“But Quill, stopping Ronan, it’s impossible. You’re asking us to die,” Rocket says, quietly.

“If we don’t stop Ronan, we will die anyway. He has the stone; he could level all of us,” Toni points out, hanging her head. “He _will_ level all of us. Ronan is… Ronan is worse than Thanos,” she realises.

Gamora and Nebula look at her, their faces twisted up in surprise.

“Ronan believes in a fascist, racist nightmare as his perfect universe. Thanos… doesn’t discriminate. Who is worse?” she asks, her mouth turned down at the corners. “The person that kills because he hates what we are, what we look like, where we come from, who our parents were, and believes that he and his kind are superior to us, should rule over us, make us his slaves or his property, or the person who actually thinks he’s saving the universe and dispassionately kills to make that happen?”

“Are you actually defending Thanos?” Gamora asks, bewildered.

“Of course not,” Toni snorts. “I still think he’s a world-class dickwad, and I can’t wait to hold his heart in my hand and _eat_ it, but Ronan is a racist dick. He’s Hitler on alien steroids, and now, he has a weapon of mass destruction. Thanos is a serial killer with self-righteous motives. Between Hitler and the serial killer, I’d still say Hitler is the true villain. Thanos doesn’t have the hate that Ronan has. He thinks he’s doing it for everyone’s good.”

“Agreed,” Peter says, pointing at her.

Gamora takes a deep breath and climbs to her feet. “Quill, I have lived most my life surrounded by people who would have seen me dead. Because of that, I only recently found my sister,” she smiles down at Nebula, who returns the smile with the barest quirk upwards of her thin lips. “I will be grateful to die among my friends,” she says, honestly.

Drax also stands. “You are an honourable man, Quill. I will fight beside you. And in the end, see my wife and daughter again,” he says, solemn as the grave.

Groot rises next. “I am Groot.”

“I will fight,” Nebula says, joining Gamora in her stance. “I will wet my sword with Ronan’s blood. This universe will no longer tremble in fear of beings like Ronan and Thanos.”

“I’m game,” Toni declares, cracking her knuckles. “Let’s waste these douchebags, one by one.”

Finally, they all look at Rocket, who sighs and gives in.

“Oh, what the hell. I don't got that long a lifespan, anyway.” He also stands up, climbing to his feet on top of the seat. “Now I'm standing. You all happy? We're all standing up now. Bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle,” he mutters under his breath.

* * *

“The stone reacts to anything organic,” Gamora says, busily. “The bigger the target, the bigger the power surge.”

“So, all Ronan’s got to do is touch the stone to the planet's surface and zap. All plants, animals, Nova Corps.”

Gamora’s face curdles in disgust. “Everything will die.”

“So, we have to make sure that Ronan doesn’t make it down to the surface,” Toni declares.

Peter nods. “Rocket will lead a team to blow a hole in the Dark Aster's starboard hull. Then, our craft and Yondu's will enter.”

One of the Ravagers, Kraglin, Yondu’s right-hand man by the looks of it, speaks up. “Won’t there be hundreds of Sakaaran soldiers inside?” he points out.

Drax snorts. “I think of Sakaaran as paper people.”

* * *

Kraglin grins and gives Drax a friendly punch on the shoulder. Drax, not understanding the gesture, gives Kraglin a sharp, dangerous look like he’s going to hit him.

“Once they know we’re on board, Ronan will isolate himself behind impenetrable security doors on deck,” Gamora muses. “Which we can disable by dismantling the power source.”

Peter nods. “We’ll make it to the flight deck, and then, Toni will separate Ronan from the power stone, and I’ll use the Hadron Enforcer to kill Ronan.”

“Once Ronan is dead, we will retrieve the stone. Use these devices to contain it,” Gamora orders, passing out orbs much like the one that had previously held the power stone before. “If you touch it, it will kill you,” she warns.

“I'll contact one of the Nova officers who arrested us. Hopefully, they'll believe we're there to help.”

“There’s one more thing we need to complete the plan,” Rocket says, solemnly, pointing to one of Yondu’s men who has one robotic eye. “ _That guy’s_ eye-”

“No!” Toni cuts him off, sharply, glowering down at him. “No, we don’t. No, we don’t need that guy’s eye,” she tells the Ravagers apologetically.

“No, seriously, I need it! It's important to me,” Rocket protests.

“Ronan's fleet has been spotted and will arrive in t-minus fifteen minutes,” the Ravager’s navigator’s voice comes through the ship’s speakers.

Yondu glowers at Peter. “Remember, boy. At the end of all this, I get the stone. You cross me, we kill you all.”

Toni and Peter, surprisingly, both flip him off at the same time and then, they share a secret, human look between them.

“This is a terrible plan,” Nebula muses.

“Agreed,” Gamora sighs.

Peter scowls. “Hey, you're the one who said you wanted to die among friends.”

Their ship, along with the Ravager’s fleet of ships, stop near the Dark Astor, Ronan’s ship.

“Fire!” they hear Yondu shout.

Each ship begins the fire at the Dark Astor, but all the artillery does is bounce off the ship, seemingly unharmed, forming a cloud of fire.

“Shit, move!” Toni snaps.

Rocket manages to manoeuvre the ship under the wall of fire, darting beneath the Dark Astor.

“Rocket, hurry!”

The Ravagers had managed to blow a hole in the Dark Astor.

“Quill! Yondu! Now!”

But Yondu’s ship is shot down by the Dark Astor.

“Aw, hell! I'm going down, Quill! No more games with me, boy! I'll see you at the end of this!” Yondu snaps through the speakers.

Gamora’s hands are tight on the edge of the console, her knuckles pressed tight against her skin. “There are too many of them, Rocket! We'll never make it up there!”

“Peter Quill, this is Denarian Saal of the Nova Corps. For the record, I advised against trusting you here.”

Peter’s face lights up, as the Nova Corps’ ships join their barricade. “They got my ‘dick’ message!”

“Prove me wrong,” the Nova Corps officer tells them, solemnly.

They manage to hold the line, together, long enough for Peter to land the Milano inside the Dark Astor through the hole that was shot through it.

“Yes!” Drax shouts.

Gamora smiles slow, like a honey drip, looking at Peter through the dip of her eyelashes. “We're just like Kevin Bacon.”

“Oh, my God, that is so not the right reference,” Toni mutters.

Peter glowers at her. “Shut up.”

“It’s a dance movie, Quill, and it wasn’t even a good movie. Let it go,” Toni snaps.

“Kevin Bacon is like God,” Peter agues. “And you shut your mouth about Footloose.”

“It’s literally about this city kid who moves to some backwards western town where the local minister has banned dancing, because he can’t get over the fact that his son died while coming home from a night of dancing. It’s not a superhero movie,” Toni says, bluntly.

Peter just stares at her. “I can’t believe that you just spoiled the ending,” he says, dazed.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know that they did a remake,” she taunts.

“They did not,” Peter says, aghast.

Toni grins bright and hard. “In 2011, and it’s dumb, even dumber than the first one.”

“You are an awful person,” Peter tells her.

Toni shrugs. “I can be, where popular media is concerned.”

They climb out of the ship and onto the cold, stone floor of the Dark Astor, making their way through the darkness.

“I can barely see,” Drax grumbles.

To that effect, Groot releases what looks like fireflies from the branches that makes up the structure of his body to light their way.

Drax looks at him, surprised. “When did you learn to do that?”

“I’m pretty sure the answer is _I am Groot_ ,” Toni says, dryly.

“The flight deck is three hundred meters this way,” Nebula says, making a quick right at a corner.

“How did you know that?” Toni asks, curiously.

Nebula gives her a withering look. “I paid attention when we were on Ronan’s ship the _last_ time,” she says, scathingly.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Teachers’ pet,” she mutters under her breath, even if it doesn’t quite make sense.

Nebula just stares at her. “What is a teachers’ pet?” she asks, curiously, her brow furrowed.

“Well,” Peter drawls.

“Quill, shut up,” Toni cuts him off.

“I want you all to know that I am grateful for your acceptance after my blunders,” Drax says, hanging his head, as they proceed further through the ship. “It is pleasing to once again have friends. You, Quill, are my friend.”

“Thanks,” Peter says, awkwardly.

“This dumb tree, he is my friend,” Drax goes on.

Groot hums.

“And this human whore, she, too-”

“Oh, my God, I’m going to kill you,” Toni rages and would have lunged for Drax, if Gamora and Nebula hadn’t grabbed onto her, keeping her pinned in place.

There’s a sharp sound, and Toni looks over at a platform, the air seizing in her lungs, when she sees Proxima kneeling there, thin, grey hand circled around her spear. She slides to her feet, tilting her head at them, her face devoid of expression.

“Look at how foolish you two have become,” she says, softly, her eyes flitting over Gamora and Nebula. “You stupid, traitorous-”

Suddenly, Proxima is blown black, and Toni looks over, surprised, seeing Drax with his blaster raised onto his shoulder.

“Nobody talks to my friends like that,” he growls.

Toni takes a deep breath. “You three should head to the flight deck. We’ll shut down the power to the security doors,” she advises.

Peter, Drax and Groot nod at her, and they disappear down a corridor, while Toni exchanges a look that speaks a million words between her and Gamora and Nebula.

“Ready to start killing off Thanos’ army, one by one,” she says, lifting an eyebrow.

She offers her hands, stretching out her fingers.

Gamora half-smiles and takes her hand, squeezing it. Nebula looks at the gesture with disdain, before she sighs and takes Toni’s other hand, her metal fingers twining with Toni’s flesh fingers.

“Their disease upon this universe is done,” Nebula says, grimly.

* * *

As they make their way to the power source of the Dark Astor, Proxima manages to climb herself out of her whatever hollow Drax had knocked her into, making her stance in front of them, her spear raised.

Toni takes a step forward, as Gamora and Nebula bare their teeth at their once-sister.

“Proxima, you don’t have to do this,” she coaxes, stretching out her hands.

Proxima snarls and throws herself forward, her spear clanging against the black sword that suddenly appears in Toni’s hand out of thin air. Proxima stares at it in surprise, her brow furrowing, her eyes widening, and then, her mouth is pulling away from her teeth, and her spear is coming down on Toni all over again.

Gamora and Nebula jump into the fray, pushing Proxima back.

Finally, a well-placed kick from Toni, the front of her foot hitting Proxima’s wrist, makes her cry out and drop the spear, which falls to the ground with a hollow, metallic song. Nebula slams her feet down on the back of Proxima’s knee, making her buckle, and they have her kneeling, with Gamora and Toni’s swords pressed against her exposed throat.

Proxima bares her teeth in a grimace up at them, ever fire, ever stubbornness.

“Yield,” Toni says, softly.

“Never,” Proxima seethes.

“Why?” Toni demands. “You and I both know Thanos is not someone who loves you, who cares about you in any way. Do you really fucking think he’ll mourn you if I send him your head in a fucking handbasket? He won’t. He’ll just be upset that you didn’t get the power stone for him. That’s all he cares about, not you, not your brothers, not your husband. You’re all expendable to him,” she says, disgust bleeding into her voice.

“Except for you, I’m guessing,” Proxima says, snidely.

Toni shakes her head. “You could have more than him,” she says, solemnly. “You could do more, be more. He or Glaive, they don’t have to be the sum of you. I know it’s hard, I _know_ what it’s like to come away from people like them. It sucks, and it’s painful, and there’s a huge, terrible part of you that’s actually convinced yourself that you love them, so it’s even more awful, and I fucking _get_ that, I get that in my _bones_.” She breathes hard, willing her heart to stop pounding against her lungs like a jackhammer. “But it is possible, it is possible to walk away from them, to remake yourself in the image that you _want_ to be. You don’t have to be _theirs_ , Proxima. You can be your own.”

She doesn’t know why she’s at the edge of pleading; people make their own decisions in the world, don’t they?

Maybe she wants to be certain that it isn’t just her, that it isn’t just Gamora and Nebula, that it is possible to walk away from those who hurt you but claim to love you, that the abusers don’t always win.

Proxima’s face is almost soft as it peers up at her. “You truly are a fool, aren’t you?”

“We should kill her,” Nebula hisses.

Toni lifts a hand to stop Nebula. “We should give her one more chance. Step away,” she insists. “Step away from Thanos and the Black Order and Ronan, all of it. Join us, help us kill him. You’ll sleep a lot better at night, I can promise you that.” 

“Never,” Proxima says, firmly.

Gamora pulls her sword back, ready to thrust it through Proxima’s throat and out the other side, but Toni grips her wrist with her free hand.

“No, wait,” she says, gently.

Gamora looks at her in confusion.

Toni doesn’t say a word, just kneels in front of Proxima, still pinned down to the ground. She clasps Proxima’s face between her hands, and the alien hisses, trying to scramble out of the embrace.

Toni hushes her, and before Proxima can even blink, by the time a moment is even done, the alien woman is fading in her arms, like dust, like ash, into whatever air is stagnating in the ship.

Moments pass, and none of them move.

And then, Toni is climbing to her feet, dragging her hand over her face, a sheen of tears making her eyes damp.

“Are you okay?” Gamora asks, a hand circling her wrist.

Sometimes, the lines of morality blur.

“No, I’m not. I’m not okay,” she says, dully, and stares at the spot where Proxima Midnight used to be, used to exist, and the bile rises, pooling at the back of her throat.

“You know,” Nebula begins, casually. “Whenever I see you do that, I keep thinking how beautiful it’s going to be when you do that to Thanos.”

A beat passes.

Gamora turns to glare at her sister.

Toni just starts laughing, laughing until her gut hurts and her temples throb and her lungs ache.

* * *

They open up the bridge door and they join Peter and Drax and Groot just in time to find Ronan in front of the giant window peering out of the Dark Astor.

Toni can taste the power stone, thick and damp like blood pooling on the ground, but this time, it pools on her tongue, and it reaches for her, as it has always reached for her, calling _sister_ , _sister, take me away, take me inside you, sister, sister, come to me, come to me, stay with me._

She ignores the call, shuts her eyes to it, and focuses on Ronan.

Peter fires the Hadron Enforcer, but Ronan just smiles his slick, cruel smile and raises his power stone, which grows an eerie, familiar purple.

The power stone deflects whatever Rocket’s super-cannon would have done, and they’re thrown aside, hitting the ground with a dull, painful smack. Toni clambers to her feet, her hand stretching out in a claw, willing away the power stone from Ronan’s grip, but the infinity stone in Ronan’s hands is equal to whatever fire is in her belly, and they’re locked in a standstill, all the muscles in Toni’s body straining as she tries to do something, _anything_ , to stop Ronan.

Finally, Ronan roars, and he’s charging for her, seeing her as the only credible threat in the room, and before Toni can even react, his large, meaty hand is coming down on her, her head snapping to the side from the blow, and she’s hitting the wall, only knowing black.


	21. xxi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, we get a much-awaited reunion.
> 
> Written for the "presumed dead" square (W1) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020.

When her eyes flutter open, she’s in a cocoon made of wood, her head in Nebula’s lap, her fingers twined with Gamora’s, as fireflies flutter around them. Peter and Drax and Rocket are seated, their legs folded underneath them, and Rocket is quietly sobbing.

And that’s when she realises that the cocoon that they’re all seated in is Groot.

She surges up, and Gamora hushes her, pushing her back down.

“Ronan,” she gasps out.

Gamora stares down at her, grimly. “We’re falling.”

They crash, and Toni feels the air being sucked out of her lungs, as she’s rolled around the nest that Groot made for them. Finally, the world stops moving around them, and when she looks up, the sun beats down at her, dappling across the dead ground, strewn with a pile of twigs, which she realises, with a gut-wrenching bile, that is all that is left of Groot.

Rocket cradles a few of the twigs in his hand, hanging his head. “I called him an idiot,” he says, dully.

Ronan emerges from his ship’s wreckage, and Rocket’s face curdles with bitter, seething hatred.

“You killed Groot!” he roars and rushes towards him.

But a blast from Ronan’s warhammer throws him aside like he’s made of paper.

“Behold!” Ronan says, loudly, throwing his hands out. “Your Guardians of the Galaxy! What fruit have they wrought? Only that my father and his father shall finally know vengeance.”

The people of Xandar approach quietly, not city people, those who live in the main city, but those who might have lived on the outskirts of the gilded city, farm people, unsure, wrapped up in their drab cloaks, cowering and waiting for death.

“People of Xandar,” Ronan calls out, smug and effusive. “The time has come to rejoice and renounce your paltry gods! Your salvation is at hand.”

Peter starts singing, “Ooh-ooh, child,” in a soft croon, something which makes Toni blink her eyes at, because it’s such an incongruous image, Peter singing and awkwardly dancing to the Five Hairsteps, while Ronan just watches him, bemused.

“Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier,” Peter goes on. “Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter.” He fixes Ronan with a deliberate look. “Listen to these words,” he says, in his normal voice, and then, he starts singing again. “Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier. Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter. Now bring it down hard! Someday, we'll get it together and we'll get it..."

Ronan shakes his head. “What are you doing?” he says, bewildered, in his rumble of a voice.

“Dance-off, bro, me and you,” Peter challenges. He holds his hand out to Gamora. “Gamora,” he cajoles.

Gamora shakes his head, stiffly, peaking with embarrassment.

Peter draws his hand back. “Subtle. Take it back,” he says, without missing a beat, and continues to dance.

“What are you doing?” Ronan demands.

A smile blooms like a snowdrop across Peter’s face. “I'm distracting you, you big turd blossom.”

That’s when Toni sees Rocket and Drax appear behind Ronan, with the Hadron Enforcer suddenly rebuilt and, in their hands, the blast from it destroying the warhammer, freeing the power stone from its metal imprisonment.

Ronan lunges for it, but so does Toni, in a blur of base urges and instincts.

“No!” Gamora shrieks in worry.

But Toni manages to close her fingers around the stone before Ronan does – she has something that he doesn’t, a terrible advantage – the power stone wants _her_ , wants to be held by her, wants to be inside her, it would’ve come to her against all odds.

What is Ronan compared to her, at the end of all things?

The stone sits in her palm, gleaming all shades of purple in the light of the sun, and then, the moment snaps, pulls her back to reality, and it starts cracking through her skin, her bone, her muscle, burning right through her as if it wants to hurt her.

The voice in her ears, behind her eyes, it says differently.

 _Yes,_ it hisses. _Yes, thank you, sister, thank you, save me, keep me, I am yours._

The cracks spread to every inch of her body, a slow lick across every plane of her, and her senses start to sharpen, heighten, and she feels it, the agony of it, a bright, living thing that starts to eat her up, slowly, consume her.

It is violent, perfect, painful, even as the cracks rip through her side, her legs, her throat, and she feels like she’s being unstitched by a jagged piece of glass, having all of her insides unspooled onto the ground.

“Toni!”

She hears her scream.

She opens her eyes, a hazy sheen covering them, and she smiles, because she sees Jarvis.

At the end of it all, she sees Jarvis.

He’s as handsome as he was the day that he died, with that salt-pepper hair and that strong jaw and those kind eyes and that suit that he perpetually wore.

He smiles at her, as he always smiled at her, smiles at her like she’s the centre of his universe – she was, she realises, she was the centre of his universe; he loved her like she was his own daughter, his own flesh and blood, his beating heart.

“You know what to do,” he murmurs, purposefully.

Toni nods, the world around her bright and hot and endlessly gold and made of fire, fighting against the purple pressing in on all sides.

“I know what to do,” she agrees, her voice high and thin.

She lifts the stone to her mouth.

“Toni! Toni, don’t do this! Toni, it’ll kill you!”

She puts it between her teeth, tastes iron and copper, like pennies, like blood, and swallows it, takes it into her body.

And then, she starts screaming,

The stone, it leaches through her, consumes her, eats her, chews her up, stealing everything: her blood, her breath, her future.

In the slit of her liquid-black eyes, she can see Ronan watching her with smugness, with anticipation, waiting for the moment in which it destroys her, makes her crumbles, turns her into nothing for daring to think her able of wielding it.

When she looks down at herself, her hands are aged, thin and aged, with the skin pulled in tight and her knuckles and tendons showing, old and bloodless.

The pulse of blood is loud in her hears, and she can taste the fetid, sickly-sweet stench of death in the air around her, and she takes a single breath, the power stone expanding within her, spreading down to each inch of her, filling her up until it’s stretching at the seams of her, her skin and bone and muscle and tendon, a strange but not altogether unfamiliar fire bleeding within her body, curling inside her like an anchor.

She cracks her neck and stares at Ronan, taking another breath and suddenly, she’s buzzing, breathing, smiling, and she’s no longer in pain, and all of the pieces of her are being stitched together.

She raises her hand, looks at it in the light of the sun, and sees nothing more smooth, unaged dark skin, perfect, unwrinkled, in the prime of her life.

She sees her reflection mirrored in Ronan’s dark eyes, sees one eye gold, one purple, her face sharpened by hunger, by want, by fury.

She laughs, her voice thundering, cracking like a whip that makes Ronan flinch hard.

He shakes his head. “You’re just a human,” he says, helplessly, unable to understand. “How?”

Toni lets her lips pull outwards, a slow lick of a smile, something hearty and indulgent, showing the pearly-white of her teeth, and she raises a single hand, the power swelling up inside her like a bruise.

Her head is tilted like a dare, and purple fire looses from her fingers, swallowing Ronan up.

“You said it yourself, you cunt. We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy,” she snarls, her eyes shining and dark.

Ronan gives away under the heat of her fire, and he opens his mouth, just for a moment, breathless and pained, and then, his flesh sinks in, withers and puckers up, and turns grey and thin like a corpse, before the fire finishes him off, sending him in up in flames.

Toni takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then, the terrible heat anchored within her body is emptying out of her, as if there are long, bloody gouges all over her body, with every moment that passes. She lands on her knees, almost to the point of unconsciousness, aching and bruised, her gaze vacant, and Gamora and Nebula are right there, holding her up, and she lets out a sob, an ugly, wracking sob, quiet enough to be hurt by only them.

“You alright?” Nebula asks, lowly.

Toni peers up at her, with the barest hint of a smile, and she nods.

They help her to her feet, a reassuring, supporting arm around her waist, keeping her there as she sways, as she gets used to this new power within her gut, as it churns within her, like acid rolling around.

God, she fucking hates these infinity stones.

Unfortunately, Yondu and his men show up.

“Well, well, well. Quite the light show,” he chuckles. “Ain't this sweet. But you got some business to attend to before all the nookie-nookie starts,” he warns Peter.

Peter faces Yondu head-on. “There’s no more power stone, Yondu,” he says, wearily.

Yondu’s face hardens. “Yeah, and why’s that?”

“Because I swallowed it,” Toni tells him, her voice sharpening.

Yondu blinks at her, and then, he gives her a feral smile. “Well, guess that means that you’ll have to come with me, baby doll, huh?”

Nebula is suddenly shielding her with her body. “I will kill you, scavenger,” she snarls, her voice short and sharp.

Toni places a hand on her shoulder, smiling to let her know that it’s alright. She takes a step forward. “Dude, you just saw me set fire to a fucking genocidal maniac. What do you think I’ll do to you and your guys if you push us on this?” she asks, flatly.

Yondu scowls. “We had a deal,” he says, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“I don’t fucking care. Get lost,” Toni replies, solid and unyielding as stone.

Yondu grinds his teeth, and his eyes find Peter. “We aren’t done with this, Quill,” he threatens.

They take off in their ship, and Toni sighs, sending Peter an apologetic look.

“I wouldn’t have actually killed him,” she tells him.

“Thanks,” he tells her, dryly. “He was about the only family I had.”

“No,” Gamora says, softly, going over to him and placing a hand on his arm. “He wasn’t.”

Toni looks over and sees Rocket seating by Groot’s pile of twigs, crying, while Drax sits next to him, his arms folded around his knees and stroking Rocket’s head to comfort him.

“No, he wasn’t,” Toni agrees.

Maybe, in the end, Toni has found a different family, so far away from her first one.

* * *

They face Nova Prime, in her sharp suit and her perfectly coiffed hair, a handsome-looking blonde woman.

“On behalf of the Nova Corps, we'd like to express our profound gratitude for your help in saving Xandar,” she says, pleasantly. “If you will follow Denarian Dey, he has something to show you.”

Peter inclines his head. “Thank you, Nova Prime.”

“Thank you,” Gamora says, gratefully.

As the group follow Dey, Nebula sidles up to Drax.

“Your wife and child shall rest well knowing that you have avenged them,” she tells him, firmly.

Drax nods. “Yes.” He pauses. “Of course, Ronan was only a puppet. It's really Thanos I need to kill.”

Nebula’s smile sharpens. “You are in good company then.”

The group follow Dey outside, who takes them to the restored Milano.

“We tried to keep it as close to the original as possible. We salvaged as much as we could,” Dey explains, apologetically.

“Wow,” Peter whispers, a wealth of emotion building up inside him and showing right across his face. “I…” he’s actually speechless, something that Toni didn’t think him capable of. “Thank you,” he says, genuinely.

Dey shrugs. “I have a family who are alive because of you. Your criminal records have also been expunged. However, I have to warn you against breaking any laws in the future,” he points out.

Rocket narrows his eyes. “What if I see something that I want to take, and it belongs to someone else?”

Dey peers at him. “Well, you will be arrested,” he says, slowly.

Rocket’s eyes widen in confusion. “But what if I want it more than the person who has it?”

“Still fucking illegal,” Toni mutters.

“That doesn’t follow,” Rocket says, adamantly. “No, I want it more, sir. Do you understand?”

Gamora’s actually shaking with laughter, covering her mouth with one hand.

Nebula frowns. “I too do not understand this. What if I am more worthy of this thing than the being who possesses it?”

Rocket snaps his fingers at her, nodding vehemently like Nebula is the only one who understands. “Exactly. What are we supposed to do then?”

Toni sighs and drapes an arm around Nebula’s shoulders, drawing her into Toni’s side. Nebula takes it with good feeling, with only the slightest grumble.

“What are you laughing at? Why? I can't have a discussion with this gentleman?” Rocket demands.

“What if someone does something irksome and I decide to remove his spine?” Drax muses out loud.

Dey just stares at them, bemused. “That's... that's actually murder. It's one of the worst crimes of all, so also illegal,” he says, his voice high and thin.

Drax hums like he doesn’t quite believe them.

Toni rolls his eyes and gives Dey an apologetic look. “Don’t worry, I’ll, uh, I’ll give them a crash course on criminal behaviour and the relevant punishments.”

Drax sniffs and makes his way to the Milano.

“They’ll be fine, Dey,” Quill says, confidently. “I'm gonna keep an eye on ‘em.”

“You?” Dey says, sceptically.

“Yeah, me,” Peters says, haughtily.

* * *

Toni stands with the rest of them in the cockpit of the Milano, and she starts grinning when Marvin Gaye’s _Ain't No Mountain High Enough_. Peter joins them, smiling shyly. Toni claps him on the shoulder.

“No, you’re talking,” she says, cheerfully, and starts singing along. “ _If you need me, call me, no matter where you are, no matter how far, don't worry, baby. Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry. You don't have to worry. Cause, baby, there ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep me from getting to you, babe_.”

The rest of the Guardians watch as she starts grooving to the music, and when she does a little shimmy in Nebula’s direction, Gamora and Peter and Rocket start laughing.

Nebula is completely unimpressed.

Toni finds the little Groot growing in his pot and waves at him, and he, still sleepy, waves back.

“So, what should we do next? Something good? Something bad? A bit of both?” Peter asks, leaning against the edge of the ship’s console.

Gamora turns to him, through the dip of her eyelashes. “We’ll follow your lead, Star Lord.”

Peter grins. “Bit of both.”

* * *

Toni is standing in a field, a field full of corpses, wan, grey bodies everywhere.

She walks and walks and keeps walking, and heads and feet and arms loll and roll in her way, and she narrowly avoids them, unseeing and absent.

The ground is drenched with blood, stained an ugly red-brown, almost black, as it dries, thick and her feet, her bare feet, pad along the fields, turning red with the blood that coats it, all the way to the ankle.

Her foot trips up against one corpse, something round and soft like a skull, under her sole, and she immediately stumbles back, wanting to put as much distance between her and the corpse, and then, she finally looks down.

She lets out a shrill cry and crumbles to her knees, the blood daubing her knees and her wrists and her hands, splattering them with red that will never wash off.

She doesn’t much care about the blood as she crawls forward, cradling Rhodey’s slack face in her hands, pulling his body as much as she can into her lap, smoothing her hand down his hair, over his brow, dirtying him with the stains on her hands.

His eyes are open and blank, the colour faded from his pupils. His skin is pulled tight across his muscles, his bones, wan and bloodless, pale and numb.

“No, no, no,” she sobs, a long, breathless second heaving against her lungs.

Her hands skate all over his face, over his hollow cheeks, and his thin, pale mouth, his throat, and then, over the armour, the War Machine armour, the arc reactor dull and lifeless.

There’s no heartbeat, no sign of movement, no sign of breathing, and Toni starts crying, crying deep, heavy, ugly sobs that wrack her entire body, making her shoulders shake.

The gravity collapses within her body, and she crumbles on top of Rhodey’s corpse, and she’s clutching at it, willing him to breathe, to move, to speak, to look at her with those dark, kind eyes of his, and to call her _Toni_.

_Rhodey, Rhodey, I’m here, I’m here, I came back._

But she’s weak, she’s without power, and Rhodey stays dead.

“I had to.”

Toni looks up, and Thanos is standing there, as she has always known him, in that gilded armour of his, the war helm covering most of his face, that double-bladed sword in his hands.

He stares at her, solemn as the grave, and she notes that his sword is stained black with dried blood.

She looks around at the field of corpses and now, she sees faces, sharpened visages: she sees Pepper and Happy and Sharon and Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton and Thor and Bruce Banner’s and new faces, new ones that she doesn’t even know.

One, she recognises; one, she’s seen in old photos, greyed and nostalgic.

One is James Buchanan Barnes.

“There was no other way this could end,” Thanos goes onto say.

Toni looks at him again, the fight bleeding out of her, as Rhodey’s corpse becomes heavy in her lap, in her arms.

“I came for the mind stone and the time stone,” Thanos tells her, his expression souring. “They would not give it to him. I gave them the option of surrender, of mercy. They spat in my face,” he says, disgusted and furious in equal measure, at the audacity, the audacity of humanity as they are. “They spat in my face, and so I killed them all and took the stones from them.”

Toni’s gut curdles, and she twists her head, doubling over and vomiting up a belly full of bile.

When she turns back, Thanos is in front of her.

He kicks Rhodey’s corpse out of her arms, and she cries out, scrabbling for his body, to put herself between him, dead though he may be, and Thanos, whatever it takes, whatever it means.

He fists his hand in her hair, and she’s fighting him, the urge, the terrible urge coming back to her like flames circling her hands, and she’s beating her fists against his arms and his chest, but he drags her to her feet like she’s nothing more than a doll.

“This is what is going to happen,” he tells her, coldly, as he makes her look at what he’s done to the planet.

The sky is on fire above them, and when Toni closes her eyes, she can hear the frightful screams of innocent people being murdered, being ripped from their bodies by Thanos’ army, the end of the human race as everyone knows it.

“This is what happens when I am denied what I want, Antonia,” he tells her, shaking her by the hair. “This is what happens when these blessed meatbags that you love so dearly, that you fight for so ardently, dare to _defy_ me, to even _think_ they are capable of resisting me, resisting the _good_ that I will deliver to this universe. They should have loved me, Antonia, but now they will hate me in death. Standing in defiance but risking nothing; what sad things you all are.”

He clucks his tongue and throws her down to the ground, his great form blotting out the red sun.

“This is the fate of those who deny me, Antonia,” he tells her, and his sword comes down her, cuts cleanly through the air, and pain rips through her entire body.

She screams.

“Antonia! Antonia!”

Hard hands surround her, fingers locking around her skin and bone like a vice, and her eyes, damp and unseeing, behind to clear, and she realises that she’s still in the Milano, that she never left, that there is no field of blood and death beneath her, and Nebula is looming in front of her, her face cast in concern.

“What is it?” she asks, her voice clipped and terse. “What did you see?”

Toni opens her mouth and pulls in a rasping, ugly breath.

“Thanos, I saw Thanos,” she says, her chest hurting, her teeth hurting. “He’s going to Earth. He’s coming for the mind stone and the time stone. He’s going to kill them all.”

* * *

“Terra,” Peter says, unimpressed. “You want to go to Terra.”

“Thanos is going to Earth,” Toni says, firmly. “So, we have to go there. We have to fight him.”

“Look, I’ve never met this guy, but from what I’ve heard, he’s not the sort of guy that you fight,” Peter points out. “He’s the sort of guy that you run away and hide from.”

“Running away is not the honourable way to deal with our foes,” Drax says, solemnly. “And I have sworn to kill Thanos with my bare hands for my wife and daughter. I will not flee from this fight.”

“Thanos is literally the genocidal maniac to end all genocidal maniacs, and you, what, you want to go to war with him?” Rocket demands. “It’s suicide.” 

Nebula sneers. “Thanos is a disease on this universe, and the longer that he remains without being dealt with, the more people will die. Can you live with that on your conscience, rodent?”

Rocket snarls. “Call me a rodent again, you fucking processor, and I’m gonna-”

“Enough!” Toni snaps. “This isn’t about you guys. This isn’t even about me. Thanos is going to Earth, soon; he’s going there, because they have the mind stone and the time stone. The mind stone is with SHIELD – I told you guys about SHIELD, right – or at least, as much as I know, and my knowledge might be a little outdated, but still, it’s valid.”

“And the time stone?” Gamora asks, absently, her eyes focused on the dashboard window. “Where is the time stone?”

“I have no clue,” she says, honestly. “I didn’t even know there _was_ a time stone, let alone that it was on fucking Earth.”

“So, how are we gonna find it?” Rocket demands. “If we don’t know where it is, how are we going to keep it from Thanos-”

“I have a theory,” she says, awkwardly, shifting on her feet.

Everyone angles their bodies to face her.

“A theory?” Gamora says, slowly.

“I am quite literally the embodiment of two infinity stones,” Toni says, slowly. “I have a theory that I should be able to find the others? Track them down?”

“You don’t sound too sure,” Rocket accuses.

“Well, excuse me if it’s not an exact fucking science, Rocket,” Toni snaps. “I’m doing my best here.”

“Yeah, well, you’re asking us to risk our lives-”

Toni throws her hands up in the air. “Isn’t that what we do? Or at least, isn’t that what we’re _supposed_ to do? Or was I just bullshitting when I said we were the Guardians of the Galaxy, ‘cause if you’re not planning on fighting in _this_ war, the war to end all wars, then, you should probably fucking tell me. I’ll go out now and deal with this shit myself.”

“Simmer down, Weird Sister,” Rocket says, quickly, waving her anger away. “I never said I wasn’t fighting. I was just saying that we needed a plan before we decided to mess with the Great Titan himself.”

“Since when do we have plans?” Toni demands.

Peter makes a face. “She’s got a point.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Toni says, leaning back, satisfied. “So, Earth, please, can we make haste?”

* * *

They touch down in New York, as Toni directs them, in the nearest bit of parkland closest to central Manhattan Toni can remember. When she steps out of the Milano and she breathes the somewhat clean air of the park, of _Earth_ , she almost starts crying.

Gamora lays a hand on her shoulder, her face soft. “You’re home,” she says, gently. “Finally.”

Toni takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah, I’m home.” She closes her eyes. “Okay, let’s… let’s find the Avengers, then. JARVIS?”

“I am making contact, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS tells her, speaking from the crimson red band around her thin wrist.

After a moment, he speaks.

“It would seem that Stark Tower was sold to third parties a few years ago, Miss Antonia,” he says, slowly.

“What?” Toni almost shrieks. She closes her eyes, wills her heart to drop out of her throat. “What are you talking about, J?”

“It would seem that for a while, the Avengers resided within Stark Tower-”

“That was never my plan, but okay.”

“And then, Colonel Rhodes and Miss Potts decided that the Stark Industries facilities upstate would be better headquarters for the Avengers and the remnants of SHIELD.”

Toni frowns. “The remnants of SHIELD?” she asks, confused.

“After SHIELD was discovered to be HYDRA, it would seem that many of those agents and employees who were not actually HYDRA were employed by Stark Industries in logistics and other positions that would be suitable for their particular skill sets. As such, it was deemed necessary to expand operations. I am making contact with the artificial intelligence in control of the Avengers’ Compound.”

“Wait, it’s not you?” Toni asks.

“No, it would seem that there was an accident, with an intelligence named _Ultron_.”

Toni closes her eyes.

_Ultron came alive on his own. I wasn’t expecting that. It was Ultron, my Ultron. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was the… the mind stone, whatever was in it. It decided that the only way to protect humanity was to destroy it, and it… he killed JARVIS._

“Oh,” Toni says, lamely, a knot of emotion forming in her throat. “Yeah, I know what… I know what you’re talking about. Okay, uh, what did they go with? AI-wise?”

“FRIDAY,” JARVIS tells her.

A smile flickers on Toni’s face. “Okay, then, uh, can you get in contact with FRIDAY? Tell her it’s an emergency, that it’s me making the contact as well. Tell the Avengers to meet us on the lawn. Some serious shit is about to go down.”

She turns to the rest of the Guardians.

“We’re going upstate,” she declares.

* * *

Toni watches through the dashboard window of the Milano, as the Avengers Compound nears. It’s a large facility, stretching for what looks like acres and acres, with a bright blue A that she can see from the sky.

This is what the other Tony had made for his team, she remembers.

If she’d stayed, would she have ended up like this? Would she have done this for them? Would she have loved them, wanted to keep them close like this?

Her hands clench around the console, when she sees coloured pinpricks amidst the grass, and an emotion she doesn’t know quite how to define, something like grief and regret and anticipation, curdling in her belly.

“Are you alright?” Nebula asks her, staring at the same pinpricks that she’s staring at.

“I’m terrified,” Toni admits.

Nebula’s face twists up. “Why?” she asks, almost disgusted.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I haven’t seen these people that I love in like five fucking years, and I don’t know how they’ll react to seeing _me_ , because I’ve been dead for those five years. Don’t you think those are legitimate fears?” Toni demands.

“Yes, but you say that you love them; do they not love you as well?” Nebula asks.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then, won’t they just be happy to know that you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere?” Nebula pushes.

“Well, I suppose.”

“Then, why the hell are you terrified?” Nebula asks, incredulously.

“Well… because…” Toni flounders for words. “Oh, shut up,” she mutters.

The ship lands on the ground, gently, without disturbing too much for the grass below, and Toni is startled into an odd little noise when she sees who’s gathered outside, waiting for them. She finds herself running before she even knows what’s happening, towards the tarmac of the ship, rushing down the ramp, across the field, crossing what seems like a gaping wound of space between them, and throws herself into Rhodey’s arms.

She hits his body hard, with a dull, smacking sound, and whatever that had kept her stretched tight, taut as a drumhead, snaps, and her nails are scrabbling against his shoulder blades, her face buried in his firm, muscled shoulder. His hands clamp down her body like a vice, keeping her pinned there, and he practically lifts her off the ground. His hands push down from her unbound hair, down the plane of her spine, to her waist, and her feet are dangling off the ground.

“Toni, what the _fuck_?” Rhodey demands, his voice soft and wet.

He’s shuddering against her, so much so that she can feel his heart pounding against her breastbone, thumping fervently.

She pulls back from his shoulder so that she can see his face for the first time in five years, his handsome, hard-cut face, and she touches his cheek with the tips of a few fingers, and she thinks she’s about to start crying.

And then, she starts crying.

The tears come like a river, rushing onward, when she actually gets a good look at his face, crumpling in sheer exhaustion and relief and disbelief, like he doesn’t know what to feel, how to even process it, she starts crying harder, boneless, brainless like this.

There’s no tension, no fight to it, when he holds her close, because she can’t imagine anything that she wants more in this world than this, to be held by Rhodey like this, when she’s missed this, been without it for half a decade.

He holds her like that, and she holds him, for an immeasurable, undefinable, unknowable amount of time, and she doesn’t want to let him go, doesn’t want to leave his arms.

A laugh, a hard, reckless laugh slips out of her throat and mouth before she knows what’s happening, and she pulls back, focusing on his handsome face and cradles it between her hands, reaching up on her toes and pressing a firm kiss between his eyes.

“Look at you,” she whispers.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Rhodey repeats, his voice grinding like stone.

Toni smiles a smile that is no smile at all. “So, I’m not dead, then.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, roughly. “You’re not dead, you stupid, fucking bitch.”

Toni kisses him again, and her vision blurs with tears. “Yeah, I’m not dead.”

Rhodey cups the back of her head and pulls her in so that he can press his mouth to the crown of her head, over her dark, unbound hair, and lets out a low, shuddering breath.

“You _suck_ ,” he declares, rasping and ugly and loud. “You fucking suck, you bitch, you _suck_.”

“And you’re a fucking liar,” Toni retorts.

She pokes him in the chest.

“You fucking missed me, didn’t you?” Toni accuses.

Rhodey scoffs. “Yeah, missed you like I missed a fucking disease,” he flings back at her.

She notes his dark, half-dead eyes – her poor, starving heart feels the same way.

She leans up on her toes and kisses him again, hard and messy on the corner of his mouth, draping her arms around his shoulders again.

“Fuck, Toni,” Rhodey grunts. “What the fuck?”

Toni trembles against him. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Yeah,” he says, heavily. “Yeah, you do.”

“Would you quit hogging her?”

Toni twists her head, and her heart cracks wide open in her chest at the sight of Pepper’s strawberry-blonde hair and her red, damp eyes. Toni is loathed to leave Rhodey’s arms, but she reaches for Pepper, nonetheless.

“Pepper? Pepper?” she says, her voice desperate and half-wild, her hand grasping Pepper’s shoulder.

“Toni, Toni, you’re alive,” Pepper says, softly, her eyes puffy with tears.

“I’m alive,” she replies, shakily.

“You’ve been dead for five years,” Pepper replies, stubbornly.

“I’ve been dead for five years,” Toni agrees.

“Well, then, how the fuck are you standing here right now?” Pepper demands, her voice going high and thin.

“Yeah, I think we’d all like to know the answer to that question.”

Toni looks over their shoulders, meets the blue, blue eyes of Steve Rogers’ painfully handsome face, those strong, clean features, and worries her teeth on her lower lip.

_Oh, hell, this is going to be bad._


	22. xxii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the warnings for the previous chapter, because Toni is going to be referencing those events in this one.

“So, let me get this straight,” Steve begins, slowly. “When you took the nuke through the wormhole, back in 2012, you were captured.”

Toni nods. “I was captured by, uh,” she eyes Gamora and Nebula, carefully. She shakes her head, fixes a firm expression to her face. “His name is Thanos,” she says, her voice sharp like flinders of metal. “The Mad Titan. He’s a warlord, and he has… potentially the worst reputation in the entire fucking universe.”

Steve’s throat flexes. “How so?”

“He’s a genocidal maniac,” Toni says, coldly. “He’s convinced that the universe is overpopulated, and the only way to save it is through the ruthless and merciless culling of half the universe, so that the resources that the universe is capable of producing will actually be able to sustain the population.”

Steve turns pale, sickly, even, like he wants to throw up.

“He’s done it before, to a bunch of planets. He goes to them, with his army, and he spares half the planet and shoots down the rest. Sometimes,” she looks at Gamora and Nebula, fleetingly. “Sometimes, he just kills them all.” She shakes her head. “So, yeah, he kept me prisoner on his ship. He…” she bites her lower lip. “Well, let’s just say that he didn’t like the look of the arc reactor.”

“I was going to point that out, actually,” Pepper says, quietly.

Toni cracks a melancholic smile. “He thought it was… not good for me, as in, it was a deformity that needed to be fixed. His solution, though, was to chop off my entire fucking torso.”

Rhodey sits up straighter, his eyes pained, while Toni’s words startle an odd little noise from Pepper.

Clint makes a noise like he’d rather be throwing up.

“What?” Pepper whispers.

“Yeah, Thanos is a piece of fucking work,” Toni says, lamely, the sweat beading on the nape of her neck. “Thanos… he… well, he took me prisoner, because he said that the stones showed him me, for lack of a better word, like we were supposed to be together and destroy the universe together and for me to essentially be the Harley Quinn to his Joker.”

Steve looks confused, and for some reason, that fills her with a sweet sort of nostalgia, back to the Helicarrier.

“Basically, we were going to be the universe’s biggest, evil power couple,” Toni explains. “I didn’t like that. Thanos isn’t one to take no for an answer, and that’s pretty much all I’m going to say on that issue. Suffice to say, after some time, we escaped.”

Natasha perks up. “We?” she pushes.

Toni runs her tongue over her lower lip. She gestures to Gamora and Nebula. “This is Gamora and Nebula; they’re Thanos’ daughters. We escaped together.”

Almost instantaneously, the room starts shouting.

“You brought Thanos’ _daughters_ back here!”

“What if they’re just a bunch of double agents?”

“How do you even know that we can trust them?”

“Hey!” Toni snaps, her voice cutting cleanly through the air. “Shut the fuck up,” she says, a dangerous edge to her voice. “Gamora and Nebula are just as much of Thanos’ victims as I am. When I escaped, I made them come with me, because there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to leave them with that fucking monster cunt. They’re my fucking family,” she snarls, her mouth pulling back from her teeth. “If they’re not welcome here, I’m not fucking welcome here, and I’m happy to leave. How does that sound?”

“No one is leaving,” Rhodey finally says, sending everyone in the room a vicious, determined look. “ _Toni_ isn’t fucking leaving,” he says, his voice a terrible, rumbling sound in his chest, “and anyone she wants to stay is fucking staying too. Did everyone get that, or did I have to make that clearer?”

Everyone is silent.

“Good,” Toni says, feline and contented. “Can I keep going with my story? Yeah, great. After we left Thanos, we found these guys. That’s Peter,” she says, pointing at Quill. “Drax and Rocket, and the little one in the pot is Groot.”

Groot’s small body waves at the rest of the Avengers, excitedly.

“We came into contact with one of Thanos’… allies, for lack of a better word. His name was Ronan, another genocidal maniac, and he got his hands on the power stone after some unfortunate misadventures.”

“I have apologised for my part-” Drax begins.

“I was absolutely not blaming you,” Toni lies straight through her teeth. “But we managed to kill Ronan, before he actually performed his fucked-up quest. And yeah, that’s pretty much the Cliff Notes.”

Natasha stares at her. “So, what does that have to do with us?” she asks, carefully, her eyes glinting.

“He was the one that sent Loki,” Toni tells them.

Thor jerks in his seat, and he looks at her in surprise, in concern. “What?”

“He sent Loki with the sceptre. That’s how Loki had it in the first place. It’s not actually a sceptre; it’s this thing called the-”

“Mind stone,” Steve finishes for her, solemnly.

“Oh,” Toni blinks. “You already knew that, huh? Yeah, well, Thanos’ whole mission can only be really done once he has all six infinity stones in his possession. He’ll be coming for the mind stone and the time stone, both of which are here on Earth.”

Natasha leans forward, her elbows pressed against the table. “How do you know this, Toni?” she asks, curiously.

Toni hasn’t forgotten how she met Natasha Romanoff, all the lies and the secrets and the manipulation and the fucking needle she tried to stab through Toni’s neck.

So, when Natasha expresses interest in something, especially something like this, Toni’s alarm bells are ringing like fucking claxons.

“Because when I was with Thanos, something happened,” she says, plainly.

Natasha narrows her eyes, but the soft look of her face remains, as if trying to invite confidence. “Like what?”

Toni runs her tongue over her lower lip. “Okay, so, there are six infinity stones, yeah? You have reality, power, time, space, mind and soul. Reality is-”

“-with Taneleer Tivan,” Thor finishes for her, his voice solemn and grave.

Toni stares at him.

Nebula steps up to her side. “Are you trying to tell us that you gave the reality stone to Taneleer Tivan?” she asks, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“Yes, why?” Thor asks, confused.

“Oh, my God, we’re fucked,” Toni declares.

“Taneleer Tivan is a greedy bastard who would hand the stone over to Thanos if faced with the smallest possible threat to his safety,” Nebula says, sneering. “So, I think we can assume now that Thanos has the reality stone.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a plausible assumption,” Toni sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I do not understand,” Thor protests. “What is wrong with the Collector holding the reality stone?”

“Like Nebula said, he’d sell the stone for a shit price if it meant keeping his head on his shoulders,” Toni says, flatly. “And be rest assured, that’s exactly the deal that Thanos will offer him. Moving on,” she says, quickly. “The time stone is somewhere on Earth. We’ll have to find it, but it’s also likely that it’ll just come to us, because they have a way of coming to us. Space… I am curious, what happened to the Tesseract after-”

Steve quirks up an eyebrow. “-after you killed the Chitauri?”

Toni shrugs.

“We sent it back to Asgard with Thor and Loki.”

Toni’s eyes light up. “Oh, so, Loki went back to Asgard.”

Clint shakes his head, purposefully.

“What? What did I miss?”

“My brother,” Thor clears his throat, his face crumpling with grief. “He died a few years back.”

Toni doesn’t know how to politely say, _I’m not sorry for your loss because the last time I saw your brother, he had killed eighty people in four days and was planning on invading Earth with an alien army so he could be king of us all_.

Instead, she pulls in all of her high society manners, the things that got her through a million different gala dinners and charity functions and debutante balls and weddings and funerals, museum openings and balls, and pastes her perfect, mercurial smile on her face.

“I’m so sorry, Thor,” she says, gently.

Thor clearly buys her fake-empathetic shtick, because he smiles faintly at her, but genuinely enough. “I thank you for your condolences, my lady.”

“So, what happened with the Tesseract? Is it still on Asgard?” Toni asks, hopefully.

Odin would be a match for Thanos, easily.

Thor looks awkward suddenly and fixes his gaze at some far-off wall.

“Thor?” she pushes.

“It would seem that before he died, my brother may have absconded with the Tesseract and stowed it somewhere,” Thor replies, grudgingly.

Toni pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh, my God, I hate everyone so much,” she mutters. She shakes her head. “So, put that down as one that Thanos probably has.”

“Is he really that good?” a handsome black man asks, pushing himself off the wall, with his hands tucked behind his back.

“Who are you?” Toni asks, slowly.

The man flushes a little and offers his hand for her to shake. “Sam, Sam Wilson.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “Where do I know you from?”

Rhodey clears his throat, pointedly. “EXO-7.”

“Oh,” Toni says, her eyes dawning with realisation. “You were the really cute guy I gave the wings to!”

Sam flushes deeper. “Yeah, that would be me.”

“How did you… how did you end up here?” Toni asks, curiously.

“Antonia,” Nebula growls from behind her. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I’m trying to be nostalgic, Angry Smurf,” Toni snorts. “Can you please not ruin this for me?”

“Thanos might be on his way to Terra right now,” Nebula says, pointedly. “Perhaps you can have this conversation after we are knee deep in his intestines?”

Toni frowns. “Does he really have _that much_ intestines?” she asks, curiously.

“You’d know,” Gamora mutters under her breath.

“That’s mean,” Toni declares.

“Oh, my God, she replaced us,” Pepper says, dazed, watching the show with her head in her upturned palm. She smacks Rhodey on the arm. “Fuck, Rhodey, she replaced us.”

“Shut up!” Toni says, pointing dramatically at Pepper. “I replaced no one. Rhodey, tell her.”

Rhodey sniffs. “Yeah, Toni and I have a special bond that can’t be replaced by anyone.”

Pepper glares at him. “The fuck you do,” she stresses.

Rhodey looks affronted. “Excuse you. We do,” he insists.

“You did a lot of crazy shit together when you were teenagers and then, you swore not to talk about it again, but had all of these inside jokes that referenced said crazy shit that you’re not supposed to talk about. That’s _literally_ the basis to your entire friendship,” Pepper says, flatly.

Rhodey and Toni look at her, unashamedly.

“Yeah, so? What’s your point?” they say in unison.

Pepper shudders. “That’s so fucking creepy,” she mutters. “Fine, she didn’t replace _you_ -” she glowers at Rhodey.

“Thank you,” he says, smugly.

“But you replaced _me_!” Pepper snaps, her lips pressed thin.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Toni mutters and pads forward.

She perches herself in Pepper’s lap and drapes her arm around her shoulders. Toni cradles her jaw in one of her hands, smushing her face together.

“How could I ever replace this beautiful, Botticelli face?” she asks, innocently.

Pepper scowls and shoves her right off her lap and onto the floor. “Fuck off,” she mutters.

“Rude,” Toni says, pointing at her, as she stands up, wiping the imaginary dust off her body. “I died for five years, and then, I came back. You have to be nice to me.”

“Excuse me, can we please get back to the genocidal alien coming to harvest the innocent humans?” Natasha chimes in, her voice terse and clipped.

Toni shakes her head. “So, a brief head count: Thanos probably has the reality and space stones. The mind and time stones are here on Earth. Okay, we might actually have the upper hand on him,” she muses.

“What about the power and the soul stones?” Bucky Barnes rasps from his place against the wall, as he slips from the shadows.

Toni finds his eyes, remembers the parallel universe that she’d unknowingly fell into, and blurts out before she even knows what she’s doing, “Did you kill my parents?”

Bucky turns chalky-pale and steps back.

She reads the answer in his eyes.

“Oh,” she says, lamely.

“What?” Rhodey yelps, clattering to his feet and staring in between her and Bucky.

“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” Toni says, just as the Guardians become alert.

“You _killed_ her parents,” Nebula says, a dark, poisonous edge to her words, her electric baton coming to life.

Steve immediately takes a stance as a shield in front of his best friend.

“How do you know that, Toni?” Pepper asks, quietly, her pale eyes shining with worry.

Fuck, Toni had missed her.

“Maybe,” Toni takes a deep breath. “Maybe I need to explain the last five years a little better.”

“Does this have to do with the reason why you haven’t mentioned anything about the power or soul stones yet?” Bruce asks, quietly, as he attempts to make himself look small and measly.

“Yeah,” Toni says, heavily. “Yeah, it does.” She drags a hand over her face. “Okay, uh, I mentioned I was taken prisoner by Thanos, and he chopped off my torso, and he told me that the infinity stones that he’d had in his possession had shown him _me_ , and the two of us together, watching over the universe as Mommy and Daddy? He wouldn’t let me leave. He was… determined to make me strong, so he had Gamora and Nebula teach me how to fight. The… uh, the removal of my torso and the replacement with mechanical parts, it… I don’t know how he did it, to be honest. I don’t know if it was the prosthetic chest or he put something into me, but suddenly, I had these abilities. I was just… stronger. I could run faster, punch harder. It was just…”

“It was like an alien version of a super soldier serum,” Bruce muses.

Toni nods, chewing on her lower lip. “It was like that,” she agrees. “He, uh, he took me, took _us_ ,” she corrects herself. “to this planet, Rajak, and he showed me what his mercy entailed. He… his army gathered all the people of this planet like sheep and killed half the planet,” her brow furrows. “No, he killed them all. Sometimes, I forget. He took us to so many-”

She shudders, one full-body vibration of her body, right down to her fingers and toes.

Rhodey reaches for her at the same time that Gamora does, both laying a hand on her shoulder, squeezing, their thumbs finding her clavicle.

Toni closes her eyes, fights against the memories, the stench of death that threaten to well up in her throat, behind her eyes. “He took us to so many planets, he killed so many people. They were so many children,” she says, swallowing thickly. “I tried to, uh, to fight him, to stop it, but,” she wrings her hands together. “There were too many, and he wasn’t having it.”

“Thanos isn’t the sort of person you can reason with,” Gamora agrees, quietly. “He did that to my planet.”

Toni twists her head to face her, her hand coming up to cover Gamora’s hand on her shoulder.

Everyone is looking at Gamora.

“Zen-Whoberi, the name of my planet,” Gamora says, her voice thin and taut. “The Zehoberei, the name of my planet. Thanos came to us; he herded us into two camps, like sheep, promised that one of those camps would survive, and then he killed everyone. He spared me and stole me from my planet.”

“He did that to my family,” Nebula says, suddenly, and Toni finds herself startling, having not expected the confession.

Nebula blinks slow and wide, without showing a hint of emotion.

“He killed all of them,” she says, vaguely, absently, as if her mind were caught in the middle of a memory.

But Nebula isn’t like Gamora; she wouldn’t welcome Toni’s touch.

Nebula shakes her head. “Go on,” she tells Toni, sternly.

“He… He told us, or rather, me his plan, what he wanted to do with the Infinity Stones, and I reacted badly. I told him he was a fucking lunatic, and no one was going to thank him for killing their brothers and sisters, their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters, their wives and husbands, and he dragged me away in private by my hair to correct me,” Toni says, flatly.

Rhodey’s face curdles, and his hands flex by his side, as if he wants to wring Thanos by the neck, watch his eyes go blank with death.

“He told me about himself, how he was actually a deformed version of a Titan, and apparently, his mother tried to kill him when he was born, because she was driven mad by the sight of him. You know, he gave me the usual childhood trauma excuse that most serial killers try to peddle at least once,” Toni muses. “Thanos would send us on missions. We were his convenient killers.”

Against the wall, Bucky flinches, as if he finds what she’s saying terribly familiar.

Toni remembers what Tony had told her, about Bucky Barnes, about the Winter Soldier, and she realises, yes, it is terribly familiar.

“Once, there was one of his Black Order, his children, who’d taken over one of Thanos’ planets while he was away, and Thanos sent us, all of us, to kill him. When we went there to kill him, I realised that Thanos actually kept slaves, these… they were in collars and they looked so hungry and they looked so trodden-on, and I was…” she closes her eyes, remembering the lost, sickly look they’d given her, those people. “Let’s just say, I killed the guy who betrayed Thanos and when we got back to Thanos’ ship, I was going to run him through with my sword, and that was the first time that Thanos raped me.”

Rhodey’s face is a fusion of grief and rage, and his hands are shaking by his sides, like there’s a frightful, terrible beast fighting against the cage of his ribs.

“Oh, my God.”

Toni looks in the direction of the voice, and her eyes centre in on Steve, who looks at her, helplessly, horrified, like he’d imagined a hundred, different atrocities that might have befallen her, but hadn’t considered this easy, familiar one, the one that happens to so many girls in this world and the next and the next.

“Toni, Ms Stark, I-” Steve begins to say, but falls silent.

“You can call me Toni,” she says, a little quiet, a little sullen. “We’ve come a long way from the Helicarrier, haven’t we, Cap?”

Steve offers her a half-smile. “We have,” he says, solemn as the grave. “I just… we thought you were dead,” he says, lamely. “We closed the portal because we thought… we thought you weren’t coming back through. You _didn’t_ come back through. We waited and I made the call-”

He falls silent, looking utterly tortured.

Clearly, this Steve Rogers weighs every life on his shoulders, a burden for him alone to bear – she wonders if he’s blamed himself for her ‘death’ for the last five years.

Rhodey turns his head, and Toni watches the muscle in his jaw flex, unpleasantly, like he hasn’t quite forgiven Steve for making the call in the first place.

Fair enough, if it were Rhodey, if someone had made the call to shut him off from Earth, if someone hadn’t waited for her to get there and save him, Toni might have actually killed that person.

“We thought you were dead, and I made the call to close the wormhole, and this whole time, you were stuck on the other side,” Steve says, dully.

Toni sniffs, haughtily, feeling his grief like a weight settling unpleasantly in her lungs. “Don’t worry about it,” she tells him, sternly.

Steve’s eyes shoot up to meet hers. “But you were… you were _raped_ ,” he protests.

“Yes, I was raped,” Toni says, honestly, running her thumb over the wild, skittering pulse in her wrist. “Thanos raped me a lot. He thought it was his way of _correcting_ me.”

Her words pull a low, rough noise from the back of Rhodey’s throat, as he covers his face with one hand.

“It sucks, it hurt, and it was an awful experience, and I’m planning on gutting Thanos like a fucking pig for what he did to me. Can we please move on from this?” Toni asks, almost impatiently.

Everyone remains silent.

“He used to send us on hunts for the Infinity Stones. We never found them,” Toni muses. “Finally, Thanos made an alliance with Ronan; he was a radical alien warlord, belonging to the race of the Kree. The Kree have been in a state of perpetual war with the Nova Empire, and when the Kree and the Nova agreed to peace treaty, Ronan didn’t take it well.”

“Because he liked the war?” Sam offers.

“Exactly. So, he made a deal with Thanos. For Thanos, he would find the power stone, and for Ronan, Thanos would destroy the whole Nova Empire. It was… pretty much getting in bed with the Devil. So, with Ronan, we went to each of the planets in the Nova Empire’s stronghold and did as Thanos bid, kill half the planet and spare the rest, like clockwork. At some point, I managed to explore Thanos’ ship, and I found where he’d been stashing my armour. I was able to connect with JARVIS, who managed to connect with the Stark Industries’ satellites here on Earth, and he told me a lot of what’s been happening here on Earth without me. Killian,” she looks at Rhodey and Pepper, pointedly. “SHIELD being HYDRA,” she turns to Steve and Natasha. “You,” she says, bluntly, her eyes darting to Bucky.

“So, you’re up to speed?” Steve asks, quietly.

“Not so much, I don’t know what happened after SHIELD became HYDRA,” Toni admits. “But I’m sure I’ll hear your stories when I’m done. I showed Gamora and Nebula my armour, and we sort of started plotting on how to escape.”

“I want to know something,” Rhodey says, suddenly.

Toni looks at him, almost afraid – above everyone alive, Rhodey is the one that means the most to her, whose opinion matters above all.

But his eyes are fiery and focused on Nebula and Gamora.

“If you guys were there when this evil bastard was hurting her, and you’re friends now, why didn’t you stop him?” he asks, his voice ugly.

“Rhodey,” Toni sighs.

“Don’t,” he says, sharply. “Don’t defend them.”

“I have to defend them,” Toni snaps. “Because no one else well. You _just_ heard about Thanos brutally murdering their families, their people, and you, what, you think they were there out of their own free will. They weren’t. Thanos… Thanos is a master of fucking manipulation and gaslighting and emotional abuse. He ruined their lives, and I didn’t see enemies with them. I saw people that deserved to get out, and so I helped them get out. It wasn’t their _job_ to help me, to stop him. Do you have any fucking idea what he would’ve done to them if they’d even tried? Don’t do that, Rhodey. You’re better than that. I know you are.”

Rhodey shuts his eyes, clenches them closed so tight.

“If it makes you feel better, I did try and stop him,” Gamora whispers. “ _We did_ ,” she tells, her eyes darting over to Nebula.

“We did,” Nebula agrees, her voice strong and clear, as she meets Rhodey’s eyes without flinching. “We did try and stop him. Maybe we didn’t try hard enough, though.”

“It wasn’t your job to do that,” Toni says, coldly.

“But he is right to question us,” Gamora points out. “We were the only ones there; we were the ones watching him hurt you. It is understandable that he would question us.”

Toni shakes her head. “I don’t want to… I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s not relevant.”

Pepper makes a noise of affront. “It’s not relevant how Thanos _hurt_ you? It is absolutely relevant,” she says, crossly.

“And Thanos is going to die for it, for everything that he’s done. I’m going to make sure he dies for it,” Toni says, her voice calm and clean. “But for that to happen, we have to move on, we have to be prepared for when he comes. That’s the only way we have a shot of defeating him.”

“Go on, Toni,” Natasha urges.

Toni’s brow furrows, deciding to leave out the part where Thanos wanted her to bear his child. “Soon after… well, he took me on this field trip to the Crunch?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “The Crunch.”

“It’s the edge of the universe, our universe,” Toni explains. “It was like a wall of fire,” she says, a sheen of nostalgia drifting over her eyes. She shakes her head. “It was there that we met her.”

Almost everyone straightens, even Gamora and Nebula, who haven’t heard this part of the story.

“Who?” Rhodey asks, softly.

“Her name is Brio. Brio of Life. She’s a Celestial.”

Thor is the first to startle, followed by the Guardians, one by one, the only ones who recognise the word.

“You met a Celestial?” Thor asks, a little dazed, staring at her with awe.

Toni shrugs. “She came to me. She said she was the first Celestial. She… she, uh, she created all of the others. Before that, she was a Proemial God? Charged with preparing what exists for what is to come,” she quotes.

Clint frowns. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m the soul stone,” she says, bluntly.

For a brief moment, it’s like the room doesn’t know how to react, and then, it completely explodes, with various degrees of shouting.

Through it all, the only one who doesn’t seem to react, doesn’t even say a word, is Bucky Barnes.

Toni can’t keep her eyes from him the whole time.

“Will you all kindly shut the fuck up so I can keep going on with my story?” Toni asks, patiently. “Because if you keep interrupting me, I won’t be able to finish this.”

She waits until everyone falls silent, but there are a few: Thor and Rhodey and Pepper and Steve and Natasha who are on the edge of their seats, words on the edge of their tongues.

There’s a woman in the corner, with dark auburn hair and green eyes, who looks at her like she’d eat her alive if she could, like she’d strip the flesh from her bones, and she’s suddenly back in that craft with Thanos, as he tells her a story, a story of a woman who blames her for her parents’ death and decides to fuck with her mind to make something that is just as destructive, just as poisonous as the woman believes Toni to be, and then, helps that thing destroy the world.

Toni wonders if this is the woman that Thanos was talking about.

“Anyway, all I remember is her opening her hand, and then, I started burning.”

“Burning,” Natasha says, carefully.

“Yeah, like I felt like I was on fire.”

“She was screaming,” Nebula offers. “When my father brought her back in his arms, she was screaming, screaming like I’d never heard anyone scream, and her body… it was like there was fire under her skin, in her blood, in her muscles; every inch of her was golden, and then, the prosthetic fell off.”

Steve frowns. “What do you mean _fell off_?” he asks, sharply. “Prosthetics don’t just fall off.”

Nebula glowers at him, the way she does when she desperately wants to eat someone’s liver, and to his credit, Steve realises that Nebula might be and should be one of the most terrifying people he’s ever met and falls quiet.

“I meant what I said,” Nebula stresses. “It fell off.” She looks at Gamora for confirmation, who nods. “It fell off, and she had skin and bone and flesh underneath. It was like…” she shakes her head. “It was like no one had taken the saw to her in the first place.”

“It was fucking painful,” Toni declares. “Like the sort of pain that if I could’ve ripped all of my organs out of my body, that probably would’ve felt like an orgasm compared to what the pain was like.”

All the men in the room except for Rhodey blush the moment she says _orgasm_.

 _Fucking boys_ , she thinks, derisively.

“I saw…” her brow furrows. “I saw so much; I saw all of you. I saw… all of the different lives that could’ve come to pass. I saw all of it. I saw when the Celestials first hid the power stone. I saw when a meteorite full of vibranium hit Wakanda. I saw you and Loki, as you were born and grew and fought,” she tells Thor, as he looks at her, all impossible and dangerous. “I saw you become Captain America,” she tells Steve. “I saw you fall off the train and what HYDRA did to you,” she tells Bucky, who flinches. “I saw my parents die. I saw when Thanos came to Zen-Whoberi, and the moment where he stole Nebula from the corpses of her family. I saw you two meet in a hotel room in Budapest,” she tells Natasha and Clint, who straighten, their eyes becoming flinty. “I saw you put that syringe into your arm,” she tells Bruce, whose jaw tightens. “Everything that’s happened, everything that will happen, everything that must happen, I was there, I was there through it all. You didn’t see me, but I was there. And then, at the end, I saw her.”

“Who’s her?” Rhodey asks, quietly.

Toni takes a low, shuddering breath, and her heart climbs into her throat. “I think she’s Death,” she whispers.

_Titankiller, Godkiller, Mother of Monsters, Mother of Madness._

“Antonia,” Gamora says, softly, placing her hand on Toni’s shoulder.

It jerks her out of her haze, wrings a dark noise from her, and Toni clutches at her head, her temples pounding. When she looks down, her veins are threaded with gold.

Everyone is watching her in awe and fear, in equal measure.

Toni swallows hard and folds her arms over her chest, self-consciously. “I saw everything,” she says, half-heartedly. “And when I woke up, I could do things, a lot of things. I… I didn’t want to stay with Thanos, I didn’t want any of us to stay with Thanos,” she looks at Gamora and Nebula. “And so, we left. We decided to gather the Infinity Stones for ourselves, so we could keep it out of Thanos’ hands, but, uh, things got in the way.”

“By things, we mean Quill,” Nebula says, sending a glower to the man, who holds his hands up in surrender.

“Hey, you guys fleeced me, not the other way around,” Peter says, defensively.

“He found the power stone on a planet called Morag; he was gonna hock it for a couple of bucks,” Toni says, with a roll of her eyes.

“It was not a couple of bucks,” Peter protests. “It was, like, a couple billion credits.”

“Still, it was a dangerous alien artefact and you were gonna pawn it like it was your grandma’s engagement ring,” Toni says, bluntly.

“Hey, so were you. Gamora had Tivan lined up to pay four billion-”

“Oh, yeah, we were lying about that,” Gamora says, bluntly.

Peter blinks at her. “What?”

“We were lying about that,” Gamora repeats. “We didn’t really have a deal with Tivan. We just needed you guys to come with us, because it didn’t look like you were going to let us leave with the power stone.”

“Gamora,” Peter says, softly, almost like he was hurt.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Toni cuts across them. “Anyway, Ronan was chasing us, because he wanted the power stone. Looks like he told Thanos to go and fuck himself because he wanted the stone for himself, and he was going to use it to destroy the whole Nova Empire.”

Steve’s jaw clenches hard. “And the power stone can do that?”

“The second you lay the power stone onto life, it destroys everything,” she says, bluntly.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen it,” Toni says, with a sick little smile. “Because I’ve seen it in my head, I’ve seen it happen in front me, and I can feel it, what it’s capable of, what it can do. Can I keep going or are you going to question the reliability of me as a narrator when you have fuck else in replacement of me?”


	23. xxiii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Wanda Maximoff" square (M2) for the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020.

Steve grits his teeth. “Keep going,” he says, faultlessly polite.

“Ronan managed to get his hands on the power stone, ultimately, and he was going to use it to decimate the whole Nova Empire. We joined forces with the Nova Core, their police force, and we managed to beat Ronan and his forces back. We, as in the seven of us, we managed to get into Ronan’s ship. The plan was we were going to kill him before he could kill everyone else. It didn’t end well.”

“Tell them about the dance-off to save the universe,” Drax offers.

Toni closes her eyes, as does Peter.

“Please don’t,” Peter begs.

“Oh, I wasn’t planning on it,” Toni agrees.

“What dance-off?” Bruce asks, carefully, his mouth twitching up in a smile.

“It really is not important,” Toni stresses. “It was a distraction, and it distracted Ronan long enough for Rocket to shoot his warhammer, which is where he was keeping the power stone, and it split from the warhammer and it was about to hit the ground and uh, well, I, uh,” she looks uneasy. “Well, I, uh, grabbed it.”

Thor stands up with a clatter. “You grabbed it,” he says, carefully,

“Thor, why is that a problem?” Natasha demands.

Thor turns to her, baring his teeth in an expression very much unlike a grin. “You cannot hold an infinity stone with your bare hands. Even I cannot, and I am a god.” He rounds on Toni. “It should have killed you.”

Toni shrugs, all the eyes on her making her itchy. “What can I say, maybe it’s the fact that I’m already the literal embodiment of another infinity stone?” she offers.

“What did you do with it?” Thor asks, curiously.

Toni falls quiet, making a face of discontent.

“She, uh, she sort of swallowed the power stone,” Peter blurts out.

Toni closes her eyes, just as the clamour and shouting begins all over again. She lets it go on for a moment, lets Rhodey and Pepper express their rage at her recklessness, lets Steve and Natasha hurl questions at her, lets Thor express his disbelief at how she’s still standing here, alive, lets Bruce ask questions about how it felt, how she feels now, what she can do.

And then, she stops them.

“Shut up!” she shouts.

They begin to quieten.

“Yes, I swallowed the power stone. Yes, I literally swallowed the power stone, as in, I put it in my mouth and felt it go down my throat and into my stomach. No, it was not reckless. It was because I felt something inside me, urging me to become one with it-”

“That is quite literally the definition of reckless,” Pepper interjects.

Toni sends a terrible look her way. “It absolutely was not reckless. I am the soul stone. It makes sense that I would creepy, unnatural, frankly supernatural urges that the rest of you wouldn’t. I swallowed the power stone, and then, I killed Ronan, and it doesn’t look like my body is breaking down or anything, so I would say that it was all good.”

“Did it hurt?” Bruce asks, curiously.

“It hurt like a motherfucker,” Toni says, bluntly. “Just like the soul stone did, but different.”

“What can you do?”

“I can turn people to dust. I can hurl purple fire at people that makes them actually burn. I could probably decimate a planet, commit genocide with a single thought, probably do serious, destructive things to the universe as a whole, I don’t know; I haven’t really given it a thought _because I don’t actually want to do those things!_ ” Toni barks like a building crashing, the edges of her being stretching at the seams, as the fire begins to kindle in her belly.

Everyone wisely keeps their mouth shut.

“Look,” she begins, forcing herself to remain calm, forcing the gold to flee from her eyes, forcing the purple to fade from her nails. “I get that this is a shock to you, to all of you. I get that I probably just dumped some serious, uber-alien, supernatural shit on your heads and I’m forcing you to deal with it in, like, ten minutes, but there is a genocidal alien warlord coming down here, and he has no compunction with murdering all of us to get what he wants, not because he’s a rage-filled lunatic, but because he genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing for the universe.”

“This is a lot for us to understand,” Steve offers, looking a little dazed himself.

“And I get that, I really do, but we have to find the other infinity stones, the ones here on Earth,” Toni explains. “The mind stone, and the time stone. The mind stone was in Loki’s sceptre; where is it now?”

The Avengers all look between themselves, guiltily.

Toni narrows her eyes. “What? What is it? What’s going on?” Suspicion drags across her entire body. “Oh, my God, what the _fuck_ did you do?”

Steve turns to the redhead in the corner, who looks jittery all of a sudden, wringing her hands together. “Wanda, is Vision…?”

“He is in the Compound,” Wanda says, her voice thickly accented.

 _Eastern European_ , Toni guesses.

“Can you, uh, can you bring him?” Steve asks, hopefully.

“Why wasn’t he here in the first place?” Toni asks, carefully.

Rhodey and Steve exchange a pointed look between them.

“We weren’t sure how you’d react?” Rhodey says, wincing a little.

“Why?” Toni demands.

And then, there’s a cranberry-red person floating in through the walls, tall and formed like a man. Between his eyes is the mind stone.

His pale eyes focus on hers, above all else, in the room.

“You called for me, Captain?”

His voice makes her jerk on her feet.

“Fuck,” Toni whispers. She twists her head to look at Rhodey. “Why does he… why does he sound like JARVIS?”

Rhodey closes his eyes. “Look, Toni, it was out of my hands.”

“That’s not an explanation,” she says, almost hysterically. “Why does he sound like JARVIS?”

“We needed someone to fight Ultron,” Bruce says, quietly. “Don’t look at Rhodes. It was me, all me.”

“Fine,” Toni says, coldly.

“Ultron was going to use Vision to help him destroy the planet. We used him to help us.”

“And you put the mind stone in him?” Toni asks, frustration bleeding into her voice. “Do you have any idea…” she closes her eyes. “Do you have any idea what Thanos will do to him?” She turns to Vision, even if it hurts to do so (at least, small mercies, he looks nothing like Jarvis, the real Jarvis). “Do you have any idea what Thanos will do to you? He will pin you down and peel that stone from your head. My guess is that you’ll die.”

Vision stares her down. “I am prepared for that.”

Toni bares her teeth at him, the sound of his voice making her way to claw at her skin. “I don’t think you are.”

“Are you threatening him?” Wanda asks, coldly, her voice having a dangerous, thin edge.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Sweetheart, that was no threat; believe me, when I’m threatening people, you’ll get it.”

Wanda huffs and turns her head to Steve. “Steve, are we really trusting her?”

Steve looks at her like he doesn’t quite understand the question. “Wanda?” he asks, unsure.

“How do we know we can trust her?” Wanda demands.

“Excuse me?” Steve’s brow furrows.

Rhodey bristles. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I understand that she is your friend,” Wanda tells Rhodey, haughtily. “But she has just confessed to spending five years with someone who is coming to kill us all. Don’t you think this looks a little too perfect? She could have come and warned us about this before, but she waited until the last possible minute to make her presence known.”

There are a few people, like Clint and Natasha and even Steve, who begin to look at her with a newfound suspicion, clearly seeing the logic in Wanda’s words.

“Excuse you,” Toni retorts. “Did you just miss like the hour-long explanation where I explained the vivid and brutal torture and abuse that I experienced at Thanos’ hand, which prevented me from leaving before?”

“You could have been lying about that,” Wanda accuses.

Rhodey growls, something black and frightful in his chest. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Wanda lifts her chin in defiance. “She left Thanos, and she could have come back to Earth, but she chose to gallivant around the universe instead of warning us.”

“Okay, who the hell are you, and why should I care?” Toni demands.

“Toni, this is Wanda Maximoff. She-”

“Oh, I know who she is,” Toni says, her voice sharp like flinders. “You’re the woman who tried to help Ultron destroy the world, aren’t you?”

“She was just a kid,” Clint retorts. “She didn’t know what she was doing.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “She didn’t know she was going to help a genocidal robot destroy the human race. That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? Besides, she looks like she’s twenty-five. How long ago was Ultron?”

“Three years ago,” Natasha replies.

“So, she was twenty-two. Give me a fucking break,” Toni says, derisively. “By her age, I was an orphan, running a multi-million-dollar company, and I’d escaped an abusive relationship. That’s not an excuse.”

“You are one to judge me,” Wanda hisses, and her hands flicker with red.

Toni stares at her for a moment, and the mind stone, heavy in Vision’s head, throbs, and she feels the throb in her entire body.

“If it were not for you, my life would be different-”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard the story, the one where you think I killed your parents,” Toni says, coldly. “I will tell you right now, conclusively, that I did not kill your parents, Ms Maximoff. I refuse to take ownership of something I didn’t do. And frankly, you want to air out your grievances against me, get in fucking line and maybe we can wait until after Thanos’ head is on a spike outside this Compound?”

“That doesn’t exactly remove my concerns,” Wanda points out. “Your arrival on Earth seems opportunistic, as well as your fervent desire to kill Thanos. How do we know that you aren’t on his side and you’re just trying to get the drop on us?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Toni snarls, mouth pulling away to show a row of sharp teeth, feeling the rage burn in her hot and fast. “Thanos raped me for _years_ and told me he loved me the whole way through. He cut off my fucking torso because he thought I wasn’t good enough as I was. I’m going to burn him alive and then, eat his heart, and then, I’m going to dance on his fucking grave. This isn’t even about you people anymore. I just want Thanos dead, and I’m going to stop him from doing to this universe what he’s already done to countless planets. So, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go and find the time stone. If you’re interested in fighting the genocidal warmonger heading straight for Earth, get in fucking line.”

“How do you plan on finding the time stone?” Natasha asks, curiously.

Toni runs her tongue over her lower lip. “I have a feeling that I might able to… reach out to them,” she says, awkwardly. “For lack of a better word.”

Natasha’s brow furrows. “Reach out to them?”

Toni taps her temple. “Infinity stone frequency,” she offers.

Wanda scoffs.

Toni narrows her eyes, a scowl edging over her firm, crimson mouth. “Look, between all of us, I’m like the only person who has actual understanding of the infinity stones, considering, you know, two of them inhabit my fucking body!” she snaps at the younger woman. “So, unless you have any fucking better ideas, I suggest you shut your trap.”

People immediately start bristling in Wanda’s defence, and she rolls her eyes.

“I get it; you think she’s a kid; you think I’m being mean; you think I ruined her life. I fucking get it,” she growls. “I’m frankly calling bullshit, but I do think we need to have our priorities sorted out right now. And for me, my priority is Thanos. Yeah? Cool? We done here?”

* * *

The time stone is with an honest-to-God wizard named Stephen Strange, which Toni finds out after she falls asleep that night. She visits him at the Bleecker Street headquarters that the Masters of the Mystic Arts seem to inhabit.

He’s a dick, something which Toni quickly figures out within minutes of meeting the man.

He refuses to hand over the time stone, and frankly, Toni doesn’t want to waste the time that she would spend fighting him, so she lets it go, under the agreement that when Thanos comes to Earth, and he will, Strange will join them in the fight.

That leaves Vision.

Toni offers a possible solution.

Wanda is the first to disagree.

“Are you insane?” she demands, her voice shrill.

Toni winces at how high-pitched her voice reaches.

“You want to _kill_ Vision,” Wanda says, shaking with hot, liquid anger. “I knew it. I knew you were evil. I knew they were wrong to trust you.”

“Toni,” Pepper says, uncertainly.

“Oh, shut the fuck up. Rhodey, Bruce and I had a chat,” Toni says, coldly, with a roll of her eyes. “Vision is made of a number of complicated structures: the mind stone and JARVIS and Ultron and Rhodey and Bruce and even me, because JARVIS, after spending so many years with me, did absorb brainwaves and personality patterns and protocols and shit.”

“What are you trying to say?” Steve asks, wearily.

“I’m saying that if we take the mind stone from him, it might not actually kill him,” Toni muses. “The mind stone was the cherry on top, for lack of a better word. But it might not actually be the central element to his existence.”

“Basically, if we take out the mind stone, there might actually be enough of Vision to keep him alive,” Bruce adds, quietly.

“And you can do this?” Steve asks, carefully.

Toni shrugs. “I can.”

Wanda makes a soft noise of protest. “No, no, absolutely not,” she says, adamantly. She tangles her fingers with Vision’s. “I won’t let you butcher him so you can get your hands on another infinity stone for your own self-interest.”

“If we don’t do something about it, Thanos will come down here and rip it out of your boyfriend’s skull; would you prefer that?” Toni demands.

Wanda grits her teeth.

“Yeah,” Toni says, satisfied. “That’s what I thought. Look, I wouldn’t even be suggesting this if I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. And frankly, me telling you people any of this is just a professional courtesy. It’s Vision and only Vision who can tell me to go fuck myself.”

“Bet you didn’t miss this part of her,” Pepper mutters to Rhodey.

“I heard that,” Toni says, sharply. She taps her ear. “I’m multiple singularities now, remember?”

Pepper scowls. “That’s just creepy.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “So, what d’you say, Vision?” she asks, staring him dead in the eye.

* * *

Finally, Vision consents to the procedure.

Between Toni and Rhodey and Bruce and an amazing woman named Shuri that Toni is absolutely delighted to meet, they manage to get the mind stone out from Vision’s body, and when he wakes up, he still sounds like Vision, still talks and walks and smiles like Vision, and Wanda is happy enough with the result.

So, thankfully, Toni doesn’t need to hear any more of her screeching.

But that leaves all of them on a blank on what they should do with the mind stone.

“Antonia should swallow it,” Gamora says.

“I agree,” Nebula says, immediately.

“Now, wait just a minute-” Steve tries to say.

“Why?” Nebula asks, ferociously. “We have the stone in hand; Antonia is the only one who can bear it, who could possibly control it and wield it in a way that would let us kill Thanos. He likely has two infinity stones himself. We need every possible advantage if we are planning on killing him.”

“Just because she took in two infinity stones doesn’t mean she could take in a third,” Steve argues.

“He’s got a point,” Rhodey agrees.

Toni stares at the yellow stone, and she decides almost immediately, something stretching wide inside her body. “I’m swallowing it,” she declares.

“What?” Rhodey demands.

Toni turns to him. “I’m swallowing it.”

Rhodey’s jaw tightens. “Toni-”

“Come on, Rhodey. You know that it makes sense,” she cajoles. “I’m the only one who can do this. I’m the only one who can stop Thanos from getting his hands on it. What else are we going to do with it?”

“We could make weapons from it?” Natasha offers.

“Yeah, like HYDRA made weapons from the Tesseract, but you can’t strip it for parts. It’s not a car,” Toni points out. “It will defend itself if threatened, and you either take the whole, or you take none of it. Even if you did put it in a weapon like Loki had it in his sceptre, all Thanos would have to do is snatch the sceptre from you.”

“And it’s completely safe within you?” Clint clarifies. “Thanos can’t get any of the stones from you?”

Toni stares at him, her gaze turning hard-cut. “If, by some chance, that Thanos gets his hands on me and wants to take the stones from me, I will kill myself, and the stones will die with me,” she tells all of them, firmly.

Most of them look aghast at her. The only ones who get it, who get her, are Rhodey, Gamora and Nebula, those who have seen this side of her, the one with the hunger and the clawing, desperate urge to get something done, to kill and be rid of Thanos and to be pulling his bones out from between her teeth.

Rhodey, in particular, isn’t happy, is absolutely agonised and furious that she would even consider such a thing, but he keeps silent, knowing that she’s as stubborn as hell, and there is no swaying her.

“Can’t Thanos stop you from killing yourself?” Natasha asks, pointedly.

Toni smiles, a little sharp at the edges. “I won’t be killing myself with a weapon,” she explains. “I’ll be killing myself from the inside.”

Steve looks tortured himself (she wonders why, it’s not like they were friends before she ‘died’). “You mean you’ll be able to just… make it happen?” he clarifies.

Toni smiles at him, gently. “Yeah, I’ll be able to just make it happen.”

Later, she takes the mind stone from where it’s being stored, in full view of the Avengers, of the Masters of Mystic Arts, of T’Challa and the Wakandan army, and she swallows down the mind stone.

The fire inside her burns brighter than ever before.

* * *

Thanos comes to Earth exactly a week after she swallows down the mind stone.

She feels it in the air, a dark, acid chill grappling with her flesh body, long before her satellites pick up his descent.

She tells everyone, and they immediately stand at attention. There are battle plans drawn, and strategies formed, and Steve Rogers, of course, becomes the commander of the largest army that Earth has ever seen: there are Avengers and other enhanced people; there are Masters of Mystic Arts; there are Wakandans; there are Guardians of the Galaxy; there are Defenders; there are Asgardians; there is SHIELD, whatever is left of them.

There are hundreds of thousands of people gathered in upstate New York, which is where Thanos’ ship, Sanctuary II, touches down.

At the sight of the ship, the air drags out of Toni’s lungs, and Rhodey lands a hand on her shoulder.

“You okay, babe?” he wonders out loud.

Toni wrings her hands together. “I’m a little terrified,” she confesses to him, and to only him. “But what other option do I have? I have to stop him, I have to kill him.”

Rhodey’s fingers wind their way into her hair. “You’ll do great,” he says, confidently.

Toni smiles, softly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, firmly.

He leans in and kisses her on the forehead, between her eyes. He squeezes her shoulder one last time, and the last thing that she feels is the warmth of his hand leave her. She watches him leave, to find the War Machine armour, and she turns her attention back to the ships circling the Compound, high in the sky.

 _Starks are made of iron, Antonia_ , she remembers her father’s stern voice and finds herself smiling.

* * *

Toni stands at the head of the army, with Steve on one side and T’Challa at the other.

Thanos drops down first, in a haze of purple light from the base of Sanctuary II, and when she sees him, really sees him, in that gilded armour of his, those red, red eyes that hadn’t left her nightmares in the years that it’s been since she last saw him, she feels her heart climb into her throat.

“How are you doing?” Steve asks, lowly, as they stalk towards Thanos and what is left of his Black Order: Ebony Maw and Corvus Glaive and Supergiant.

She feels a sting of grief for Proxima’s non-existent corpse.

“I’m fine,” she says, absently.

Thanos smiles when he sees her. “My Antonia,” he says, unbearably fond, in a way that makes Toni’s skin crawl. “My runaway bride.”

Toni scowls. “Fuck off. I’m not your bride,” she snaps.

Thanos’ mouth thins. “You believe yourself to be brave, because you surround yourself with these apes who you believe will protect you from me,” he says, shaking his head in disappointment, like she is an errant child due for a lesson in good manners. “You cannot deny me, my love. You cannot deny what we mean to each other. We are one, we are whole together.”

“Funny,” Steve says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Somehow, I don’t think kidnapping, torture and rape is a good love story.”

Thanos’ beady, red eyes fix on Steve, and they’re cold with their condemnation. “Watch yourself, boy,” he threatens, his voice sharpening like a blade’s edge. “You do not know what you speak of.”

“I don’t need any of these people to protect me,” Toni says, quickly, but Thanos already has Steve in his eyes. “Every one of these people would die, not for me, but to save this world from you, save _every_ world from you. And I… I’m just going to help them, especially if it means that I get to rip your heart out of your chest at the end of this.”

Thanos’ face hardens. “It won’t end the way you want it to, this war.”

Toni’s lips stretch out in an old, snug mask. She leans forward. “Look closer, see what’s changed.”

Thanos narrows his eyes and his red eyes bore into hers, and she lets the fire rise to the surface, lets her eyes turn people, and her skin is threaded with gold, and her lips are a jaundiced yellow.

Thanos recoils from her as if he were a leper – God, she wished he’d done that from the start.

“What have you done?” he hisses.

“You have two infinity stones,” Toni taunts, eyeing the ones on the terribly gaudy gauntlet on his right hand ( _space_ , _reality_ ). “I have three now. Shall we see who wins at the end of this?”

Thanos narrows his eyes. “I will not leave this world until I have drenched the ground in humanity’s blood, and then, when I am done, I will take you from this wretched place and you _will_ love me, Antonia. You will never leave me again. I will not allow it.”

Toni bares her teeth at him. “Yeah, that’s not happening. I guess we’ll have to see who’s still standing when the dust settles, huh?”

Thanos’ face curdles, and his face shifts. “Maw.”

Ebony Maw perks up. “Yes, sire?”

“Kill them all,” Thanos orders. “But leave her alive, so she may see what her defiance has cost this world.”

“Yeah,” Toni sighs. “I think we’re done here.”

* * *

“What did he say?” Rhodey asks, curiously, when they return to their lines.

“Oh, you know, the usual, what’s up, how you been, how dare you leave me, I’m going to kill everyone here and take you away with me, you will love me, abusive, controlling boyfriend bullshit,” Toni says, with a roll of her eyes, stifling down the uneasy emotion that floods through her body.

“Joy,” Rhodey sighs.

Toni didn’t think that normal battles start with each side facing off each other, and someone actually declaring on each other that they were allowed to start charging.

The armour forms around her like an old, snug mask, and she breathes deep, letting her lungs expand to their fullest, and her sword appears at her wrist.

She waits.

“Avengers!” Steve calls out, his voice sharp like flinders (he’s grown a beard since she came back, a thick, scratchy one that covers the lower half of his face like an overgrown brush – she wonders what it would feel like against her thighs). “Assemble!”

Thor roars, and then, T’Challa roars, and suddenly, the army is rushing, they’re all rushing.

Toni throws herself in the air, her hair flying out in the wind, and she watches as the field floods with Thanos’ army, the Outriders and the Chitauri and the Sakaarans that he’d stripped from Ronan after his death, presumably, and Thanos raises his sword, the double-bladed one that Brio had given him, given him for this battle, she realises, and his army rushes against theirs, the Black Order at the front.

Toni has her eyes on Thanos, and when she looks down, she shares a deliberate look with Gamora and Nebula.

The Black Order goes first, they decide between them.

Toni takes Glaive, while Nebula goes for Ebony Maw, and Gamora has Supergiant.

She sees a boy swinging around the battlefield, fighting and barely dodging the edge of Glaive’s weapon, and he fights back admirably and valiantly, getting the drop on Glaive at three times that Toni can see, managing to plant his foot against Glaive’s ribs and send him flying at least fifty feet, so Toni knows that he’s no ordinary teenager. He exchanges sarcastic quips with Thanos’ servant, even if Glaive just snarls and growls and generally acts like a total, monosyllabic douchebag.

Finally, Glaive manages to get his thin-fingered claw around the boy’s neck and has him pinned to the ground, leaning in and opening his gaping, toothy maw, even as the boy struggles and kicks out – his strength doesn’t seem to help him here, not with Glaive; even with his remarkable talents and abilities, he’s no match for Glaive who is hundreds of years his senior.

But Toni is.

She flies forward and rips Glaive off, sending him flying at least four hundred feet.

She turns her attention back to the boy on the ground, who’s staring up at her, with his mask off, his eyes awed.

“Hi, I’m Peter Parker,” he says, shyly.

Toni lets her lips stretch out in a genuine grin, softening the harsh line of her cheekbones. “Hi, Peter Park, I’m Toni.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says.

Toni stretches her hand out. “Need a hand?” she offers.

Peter takes it, and she pulls him to his feet. “Thanks,” he says, rubbing the back of his head.

Toni narrows her eyes. “Hey, you look familiar. Have we met before?” she asks, curiously.

“Yeah, actually, uh, I was that boy, at the Stark Expo,” Peter says, almost embarrassed. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“The one with the Iron Woman helmet,” Toni says, delighted, the joy brightening her face. “I remember you.”

Peter blinks at her, slow and wide. “You do?” he says, his voice hushed and disbelieving.

“And you’re, what, you’re half-spider?” Toni asks, curiously.

Peter looks down at his hands. “Yeah, sort of it.” He sighs. “It’s a long story.”

Toni claps him on the shoulder; she knows without knowing that he’s supposed to be important to her, her heart expanding full in her chest. “You’ll have to tell me about this, when this is all over.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks, hopefully.

“Yeah,” Toni says, softly. “Now get out of here, kid. The reptile over there is mine.”

Peter looks at Glaive, who stalks towards them. “Are you sure?” he asks, worriedly, in a protective sort of way that makes Toni go all gooey on the inside. “‘Cause he’s pretty strong.”

Toni smiles her shark’s smile, with a blade’s edge in the lines. “So am I.”

Peter’s mouth stretches out in a grin, as a reply, and he salutes her, swinging away to join the battle on another front.

“You killed my wife, ape,” Glaive snarls when she flies the rest of the way to him, her knee to the ground, her eyes to the dirt, as she slowly raises her gaze.

“I did,” Toni agrees. “And I can guarantee you, she is more at peace in death than she was ever with you.”

Glaive roars and lunges for her, his blade stretching out to cut her from ear to ear.

Toni dodges the blow, dancing around him, taunting him. “Woah, breaking Daddy’s rules, aren’t we?”

Glaive sneers. “I will simply tell him that an Outrider was too bold. He will believe me,” he says, confidently.

“No, you won’t,” Toni replies, firmly. “Because you’re not leaving this battlefield alive.”

The next time that Glaive’s blade reaches for her, she blocks it with her sword, and suddenly, there are cannons bursting out of her arms and firing a molten-blue light at him, sending him flying back. He hits the ground with a dull, thumping sound.

Before he can even react, before he can raise his head and his vision can solidify, Toni is on top of him, and her blade is slicing him from ear to ear, pushing down until she feels the muscle and tendon give and part under the edge, and then, his head is coming off his shoulders, and she’s kicking it away, satisfied.

She turns her attention back to the battle, sees Nebula in the grip of Ebony Maw’s fantastical grip, rocks forming like shackles around her, crushing her, and then, Toni is in the air, the armour melting away into her bones, and she’s floating, jutting in between them.

Ebony Maw’s control breaks, and Nebula falls to the ground with a grunt.

“Go help Gamora with Supergiant,” she says, gently.

Nebula grinds her teeth like it physically pains her to leave Toni alone, but she runs away, runs to join Gamora in her fight against Supergiant, adding her shrill sword to the mix.

Toni rounds on Ebony Maw, who watches her, his smile slow and serpentine.


	24. xxiv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: explicit, brutal violence, technical cannibalism, major character death.
> 
> Written for the "myths and legends" square (K1) for the Tony Stark Bingo 2020-2021, and the "Look, you made me something vicious" square (N2) for the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020-2021.

“Do you believe that you can fell me as easily as you felled Glaive?” Maw taunts.

“I think your powers are nothing compared to what I can do,” Toni says, simply.

She reaches for him, her eyes turning yellow, like snake eyes, the pupils blooming wide, and her fingers stretch into a claw.

Ebony Maw’s eyes turn a strange, starlit blue, and he stops, in mid-air, hanging like a limp doll.

“Kill yourself,” she orders, her voice chilling like ice.

Ebony Maw finds the dagger strapped to his belt and raises it to his throat. He cuts a neat line from ear to ear, and he chokes on his blood, and dies. The magic gives out and Ebony Maw crumbles to the ground, splayed out, bones broken.

Toni cock her head, staring at him for a moment.

When did she become so okay with killing?

She turns her head just in time to watch Gamora and Nebula stick Supergiant in his thick, muscled throat with their swords.

Now that the Black Order is dead, Toni sets her sight on Thanos.

When she looks around the battlefield, she finds Thanos engaging in a battle with Steve and T’Challa. Thanos tosses them aside like a sack of potatoes, and then, he’s caught in a red grip, Wanda’s, who holds him mid-air. The reality stone begins to glow, and Wanda stops.

She just stops, in the middle of battle.

Her hands fall back to her side. They climb into her hair and start pulling, and Wanda is screaming, screaming so loudly that it’s as if the earth is shaking beneath her, and she’s clawing at her face, drawing red and bloody lines down her skin, and when Vision tries to stop her, she lashes out, her face cast in rage, and she’s pulling him apart, pulling him apart at the seam of him, until Vision dies in pieces.

 _JARVIS is alive_ , Toni reminds herself. _I still have JARVIS. Vision was just a copy._

Clint intervenes, clearly thinking of the young woman like a daughter, but her powers are so much more vicious on a human than they are on an android, and Clint is bursting apart, and it’s raining blood and flesh and body parts.

Natasha screams somewhere else on the battlefield, staring in horror and terrible grief, as she watches her oldest friend in the world become nothing but a stain of blood on the Compound’s field.

And then, Wanda is tipping her head back and screaming and screaming, and she dies in a flurry of red, turning into nothing herself.

Thanos floats down to the ground, satisfied.

Toni takes a step forward in his direction, and she’s knocked right down to the ground, an Outrider snapping its jaw full of teeth at her. She raises her sword in one hand and a cannon is forming around another, and she’s shoving them forward, but before she can kill the beast, someone is already pulling it off her and shooting it between the eyes like a dog in the streets.

Toni stares down at the Outrider’s body and feels sick to her stomach, because this is how Jarvis died.

And then, she looks up at her saviour.

It’s Bucky, who’s standing there, panting, rifle in his hand, and staring down at the Outrider with a tilted head.

“You think these things bleed?” he asks, curiously.

Toni kicks at its corpse. There’s no blood.

“No, I think they’re mostly meat,” she says, casually. She looks up. “Thank you for saving me,” she says, honestly.

Before she even knows what she’s doing, a flash of heat curling in her belly, she leans forward and crushes her mouth to his. Bucky makes a soft noise of surprise against her mouth, and his hand goes to waist, almost instinctually, but somehow hesitant and afraid, as he pulls her in close.

Feet land beside them, and Toni pulls away from Bucky, watching the way his face is dazed, the blood hot and rising to his skin. He swallows hard and licks his lips, as if chasing the taste of her until it goes away.

“Excuse me, this is probably not the best time to be _kissing_. In case you two forgot, we’re in the middle of a serious fight,” Steve hisses at them.

Toni looks her fill of him, noting the cut near his hairline, bleeding heavily, and the dirt streaked across his face and his beard.

“You jealous?” she teases.

Steve’s eyes widen, and the red rushes across his face. “I… I…”

She presses forward, and her mouth comes down on his with bruising force, curling her gauntlet around the nape of his neck, her teeth tugging at his lower lip when she pulls away.

“Don’t be jealous, Steve,” she says, her eyes glinting hot and gold. “I like you too.”

She drags her teeth over her lower lip, backing away from both men, and she flies over to Rhodey, helping him fight off a horde of Outriders and Chitauri that surge around him.

“Did I just see you kiss Captain America and the Winter Soldier?” Rhodey asks, casually, as the missiles from his shoulder burn down the front line of soldiers.

“I totally did,” Toni agrees.

“Wow, teenage you is freaking the fuck out, isn’t she?”

“Definitely,” Toni muses. “They did feature in every single one of my sex dreams until I was sixteen.”

She can practically hear Rhodey’s face scrunch up in disgust. “Yeah, I remember. We shared a dorm room, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Toni muses. “Oh, well, you can’t deny that three of us together would be an incredibly hot image, the stuff that porn is made of.”

Rhodey makes another one of his faces under the helmet (she’s known him for almost as long as she’s been alive, and she knows him better than she knows herself; she knows all of his faces and his looks and his gazes and his poses and his body language). “Okay, fine, yes, I can see that,” he admits, grudgingly.

Toni’s lip curls up, satisfied. “Why, thank you.”

“Heads up: ex-boyfriend looks _pissed_ ,” Rhodey comments.

She turns her attention across the battlefield to Thanos, who has clearly witnessed her mid-battle romantic rendezvous, his face contorted in bitter, seething fury.

“Oh, lovely,” Toni says, delighted.

“You go get him, babe,” Rhodey encourages. “Rip his lungs out.”

“You got it, babe,” Toni replies, and she kisses him on the forehead, just where the slits of his eyes form in the armour.

Thanos rushes towards her at unnatural speed (the space stone, she realises), his blade outstretched, and she flies forward, meeting him halfway, the ground shuddering when she makes her landing.

“I imagine that was for my benefit,” he says, almost wearily, like a father might with a rebellious daughter.

She’d heard the tone many times from her own, so she’s become quite used to its particular brand of disappointment and anger and condemnation.

“Well, it may be because you're a narcissistic megalomaniac and _I don't like you_ ,” she tells him, slyly. “But, in any case, it’s me performing my sexuality in a healthy, liberal way. I am a woman who absolutely _loves_ orgasms,” she taunts.

Thanos’ face twists up. “You belong to me, Antonia,” he warns. “I will not take much more of your disobedience.” He sneers. “Or your blatant whorishness.”

Toni grins. “Stop me, I dare you.”

Thanos’ mouth pulls away from his teeth, showing the razor line of them, in a snarl, and his blade comes down. She meets it with her sword, blocking him, but he’s stronger than her, made of pure muscle and bulk and at least twice her height and width, and he pushes down and down, bearing her to one knee. She fires her repulsor into his gut, and he grunts, pulling back.

She swings her sword, and he manages to block it, the metal scraping and grinding as it meets between them. She twists the blade and manages to smash the hilt under his chin, sending him skidding back and clutching at his face.

She twirls the sword, fingers curling around the hilt, and they circle each other, like lions measuring their prey.

She fires her repulsors at him, glinting white-hot, as he charges for her, but he bats it away with the power of the gauntlet. Finally, he looms in her eyes, and he manages to get his hand around her gauntlets, cracking it down the middle, and baring his teeth at her.

He slams his fist into her stomach, knocking the air right out of her lungs and sending her onto her back, the sword falling onto the ground. She scrabbles for it, but he circles his hand around her ankle and drags her across the ground like she’s a sack of potatoes.

Humiliation curdles in her gut, but she doesn’t have the time to focus on it, because he’s on top of her, like he had the first time he’d crawled on top of her and spread her legs and shoved his fingers up inside her in some deranged fantasy of love and consensual sex where she welcomed him with open arms and an open cunt and took him inside her with sighs of love and adoration and ecstasy, instead of the ritualistic rape that it was.

All she sees is that, him, on top of her, the rage, the determination, the gaping wound of obsession and hunger as he looked at her, wanting to own her and cage her and put a leash around her throat so she knew exactly who she belonged to.

God, she hates him, she hates him more than she’s ever hated anyone, because once, a long time ago, she loved Tiberius Stone, she still loves him, even after all of these years, even if she less than human and more singular than she has ever been, as this degenerate part of her that she can’t seem to shed.

She has never loved Thanos to feel any kindness for him today.

Her hands are on fire, gold and purple, streaked through her veins and her lungs and her eyes, and she’s struggling against him, and she presses her hands against his shoulders, his heart, and she’s screaming, a shrill, sharp cry that makes the universe itself cave in on itself, and he’s burning, his eyes widening in fear and disbelief, and he’s thrown back, landing on the ground yards away with a dull, seemingly painful smack.

She’s rising into the sky before she can even stop herself, and she’s smiling, revealing the shine of her teeth, her eyes like oases, vicious and adamantine in equal measure.

She lands on the ground, and she stretches out her hands, and there are so many souls here, so many living, breathing things, and it takes her some effort to reach for all of them that don’t matter to her. She finds the soul and heart of each and everyone belonging to Thanos’ army and rips them from the world, their hearts and their lungs and their blood, and finally, they turn to dust, and the battle stops, just like that.

It stops, and it’s just her and Thanos.

She lands on her feet, just as Thanos clambers to his, his blade cracked and broken, lying in pieces on the ground.

“What is it that you said to me the first time that we met?” Toni calls out, with her dark, flashing eyes. “Titankiller, Godkiller, Mother of Monsters, Antonia Margaret Stark. That’s me. It’s strange that you thought I was your soulmate, when it’s clear that I was always meant to be your death.”

Thanos is panting, his teeth bared in an ugly smile. “You underestimate me, my love,” he muses.

His gauntlet gleams in the blustery sunlight above, and she notices three infinity stones (Stephen Strange lies dead somewhere on the battlefield, and Thanos has claimed his prize) on the damnable thing.

The time stone reforms his blade, turning it as sharp and whole as it always was.

He fires a blast of red energy from his gauntlet, and Toni barely has the sense to pull up a solid, golden shield that absorbs the blast. It seeps through, though, and subsumes her vision, and when she opens her eyes, she’s standing in the middle of a dark battlefield, and everyone is lying dead around her. Her feet are ankle-deep in a river running full of blood, and the stench of decay and fetid rot is burning at her nose, and she can’t breathe, can’t think.

It’s like her nightmare, the nightmare that brought her here.

Rhodey lies at her feet in the metal coffin that is the War Machine armour, helmet off, and his face is streaked with dark red blood, and Toni is screaming and screaming, wanting to tear her hair out, collapse in a fit of tears, and then, she’s throwing her hands out, and a thin yellow ripple is shuddering outwards, and the mind stone is destroying whatever illusion that Thanos had made to scare her, to make her falter, to destroy her from her mind onwards, and when she gasps and opens her eyes, it’s her battle, it’s her final war, her final defiance, and Thanos is standing right there, and everyone is watching her, waiting for her, and Rhodey, blessed Rhodey is still alive.

“You can’t fool me. You can’t kill me. _You can’t fucking kill me_!” she’s screaming at the top of her lungs.

Thanos’ face curdles, delirious with rage. “If you are determined to defy me, to deny, to _spurn_ me and choose these meatbags over the one who would have made you whole and beautiful and good, I will kill you, Antonia,” he promises, his voice black and thundering.

“No, you can’t,” she snarls.

He flies at her with the space stone armed in his hand, and his fist comes down on her, and she takes the blow, and her face explodes in a world of pain, and he’s beating her now, actually beating her, and then, Gamora is slicing him from calf to thigh with a shriek of rage, and Nebula is pounding her electroshock baton against his spine, making him cry out, and even Rhodey and Pepper are there, firing their cannons and their missiles at him.

It explodes in Thanos’ face in a barrage of smoke and he grunts, as he’s thrown back with the force of it. He tries to get up, but Toni stretches out a hand, and the world stops.

Everyone is watching; everyone is tuned into her in this moment, and they can’t take their eyes off her.

She stretches out her hand, and in her mind, she sees it happen, she sees him turn to dust, turn to nothing as he should, as they all do and will.

But for her.

Her hand shakes.

She remembers his hand in her hair, fisting against her scalp; she remembers his fingers inside her, the sting of her knuckle against her lip, the taste of iron in her mouth and the blood on her thighs.

She can't do it.

She can't kill him.

She starts screaming again, her screams rending the air, and then, the earth gives away under Thanos, when she slams her open palms against the ground.

Chains sprout up from the earth and surround Thanos, pinning him against the ground.

He struggles, shouting, roaring and raging and railing, and he fights, and the gauntlet is fighting and the stones that he has are fighting, and then, Toni is standing there, and her sword is coming down, slicing his arm off at the elbow.

The gauntlet full of Thanos’ cut-off arm rolls away, and the stones gleam.

She’ll deal with them after.

Thanos is roaring with the pain of his sudden amputation, staring at it with horror.

He sees her standing there, standing above him like a bird ready to pick out his eyes, her furious, singular profile, and the mean, bitter, hungry streak of her that he should be able to taste in the air.

He struggles anew.

“You can come,” she calls out to Gamora and Nebula. “He can’t get out,” she says, mouth curling upward in satisfaction.

Gamora and Nebula pad towards her. They are streaked with blood and dirt and sweat, but their mouths are pressed together in a firm, determined line.

“I promised you that we’d kill him, remember?” she tells them, gently.

Nebula just stares down at Thanos, weak and the power leaking out of him with every moment that passes, and her face opens wide, vulnerable.

“I don’t-” she falls silent. “I don’t know how to kill him.”

Gamora is shaking on Toni’s other side, staring at Thanos with hungry, haunted eyes.

“It’s okay,” she says, softly, tangling her hands with theirs. “We’ll do it together.”

“How?” Gamora whispers.

Everyone is watching them, can’t take their eyes off this final moment.

“Like this,” she says, in a resounding and chilling way.

Thanos peers at her, his eyes wide-blown and terrified, withering in defeat – _good_ , she thinks, smiling feline and contented; she wants him scared, she wants him shitting himself with what they’re going to do to him.

“Antonia,” he begs. “Antonia, please. Please, my love. You cannot kill me; you cannot remove me from this world. You need me, you _need_ me, we belong together. _We are one_ , _we are whole together._ ”

_I have never needed anyone, and I am whole on my own._

Toni lifts her chin, defiance in every tilt. She raises her sword. “Goodbye, _my love_ ,” she taunts.

With a scream of rage, her sword comes down and she cuts off his cock.

Thanos roars in pain, jack-knifing, only to be shoved right back down by the chains, the veins and tendons in his body jumping against his hide-like skin.

“Well?” she asks Gamora and Nebula, cocking her hip outward.

Nebula looks at the blood pooling between Thanos’ legs, almost curiously, thoughtfully. And then, with an equal rending scream, she slams her electroshock baton, slicing Thanos’ other arm at the shoulder.

Gamora takes a step forward, and her sword comes down as well, letting out a fearsome shriek as she does so, and she cuts off half of his face.

Again and again, they go, screaming, all ugly and loud, like animals caught in a trap and finally freed, and their swords come down on his skull, on his limbs, on his torso, and his insides and his organs, pink-grey brain matter, flesh and sinew, gristle and bare, cracked bone, until all three of them are covered in red, red, red. 

When they pull stop, the terrible, terrible heat bleeding out of them, as they finally realise that Thanos is dead, dead at their hands, they spit on his befouled corpse.

Toni crouches down and reaches down in the puddle of what is left of Thanos, and she fishes out his heart.

His soul is gaping and pulsing within it, and she stares at it, for a moment.

And then, she shrugs, sinking her teeth into the fat muscle. Blood fills her mouth, tasting of iron, and it runs down her chin. She ignores the taste, the toughness of the muscle, and keeps chewing, keeps eating, and then, she’s only holding his soul, the ghost-weight of it, in the palm of her hand.

She should eat it as well, take it into her body; all souls are hers, after all.

But she doesn’t want this part of him in her body, the disease and the rage and the hatred and the delusion of him poisoning her from the inside-out.

She crushes it between her fingers, reduces him to nothing, and the soul of Thanos, the Mad Titan, dies a slow, unimpressive death, ceasing to exist under the bite of her fingernails. 

When she’s done, when Thanos has wholly and absolutely and irrevocably been removed from this plane of existence, she rubs her hand over her mouth, wiping off the blood that has dripped down her chin.

Everyone is staring at her, when she turns, staring at her in abject horror.

Even Rhodey looks absolutely sick to his stomach at what she’d just done.

The only ones who shield and shoulder her are Gamora and Nebula; only they, even above Rhodey, whom she loves the best and most, in a deeply visceral way, know what Thanos was like, what he was capable of, what he did to each of them, how much he deserved to die like this.

Toni unlinks her hands from theirs and pads over to the gauntlet that had rolled from Thanos’ body. She ignores the half-arm that is still stuck inside and instead, reaches down to pluck the three stones from the gauntlet.

She opens her mouth, and she breathes deep, filling her lungs until there is no more space, and then, with that hollow, gaping stretch in her mind, she swallows the three stones down, one by one, lets them settle in her bones, some heavy, molten thing, kick at her ribs, leave the shapes of them all over her skin, spit herself on them, around them, splaying her open, leaving her almost too full, until she feels the light and fire of all six infinity stones burning right through her eyes, her mouth, her cunt, and then, it snaps back, it screeches, her existence.

She breathes again, anchors the air tight against her chest, and all the knots within her body loosen.

Everyone is still staring, waiting, anticipating something – she wonders if they think she’ll become the next Thanos, that her next act will be to impose her will on them; she can already see a few Asgardians curling their fingers around their weapons, as if the next moment will require them to use those weapons on her.

She raises an eyebrow in dark amusement. “I don’t know why everyone’s looking at me like that,” she says, lightly. “This is what I was always going to do. I even told you.”

Rhodey is the first to move, his face setting in determination and resolve, and this is when the fear actually blooms in her, slithering against her lungs and her belly, and she’s pleasantly and viscerally surprised when he seizes her in a tight embrace, hard enough to crack her bones if she were still an ordinary human.

She clutches at him, just as tight, her nails digging into his shoulders, now that her armour melts away back into her bones.

“You okay?” Rhodey murmurs in her ear.

Toni nods, breathlessly, against the hollow of his throat. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

_He’s dead, I’m good._


	25. xxv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "public sex" square (E5) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020, and the "premonitions" square (S5) for the Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV.

After Thanos dies, Toni settles back on Earth.

She is loathed to say goodbye to Gamora and Nebula, whose home is on the Milano and out in the rest of the galaxy, drifting amongst the stars, but she also knows that they would chafe if they stayed on Earth.

So, she makes her goodbyes, and there are even tears, until Nebula finally punches both her and Gamora on the arm and reminds them that they have a fucking spaceship and they can make trips to Terra whenever they like.

She hugs Quill, when they leave, and she gives him a warning, her own personal shovel talk, where she promises to eat his intestines if ever breaks Gamora’s heart – she knows that shovel talks are fucked-up and condescending and patronising and misogynistic and might exhibit a genuine disbelief that a woman is actually capable of making her own decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions, _but_ Toni loves Gamora, loves her like she loves Rhodey or Pepper or Sharon or Happy, and she will happily distribute the atoms that make up Peter Quill across the cosmos if he hurts her stepdaughter.

She hugs Drax, who calls her _Killer of Titans_ , proudly, and laments that he was not able to avenge his daughter and wife himself, but is glad that she did it for him, that they would have liked her. She makes him promise to come to Earth often, only because Drax’s lack of humour and absolute literal approach to everything really freaks out the Avengers, and she finds it very funny.

She doesn’t hug Groot, because he’s still in his pot, but she does blow him a kiss, and he blows her a kiss too, because he’s just a really small, baby tree with a heart of gold. She even hugs Rocket, who bears it with his trademark sarcasm, patting her heavily on the back, and making some stupid quip about her being too shiny for them now, but when they break away, she watches him wipe at his eyes, and she knows that he loves her too.

When the Guardians fly off in the Milano, Toni watches in grief, with Rhodey’s hand on her shoulder. She leans into his body, when the ship disappears off into the clouds and pretends that she doesn’t want to start crying.

* * *

Earth names her _godkiller_ and _survivor_ and _mother of peace_ , and Toni starts laughing at that last one, because that is what she is now; no longer a warmonger, but a peacemonger, and it’s as damning as the first time she was called the _merchant of death_.

Some of the terrible ones, the ones that have never liked her, call her _mother of monsters_ , _mother of madness_.

She takes them in stride, holds them close to her chest, nurses them at her breast as she had _merchant of death._

She settles in at the Compound, even if it’s a touch too sterile than what she’s become used to, but she relearns everything, relearns what it means to be a human woman living on Earth.

The Avengers are equally friendly but equally scared, concerned about the fact that the woman that is and always will be Antonia Stark now is literally the flesh embodiment of the six singularities that make up this universe.

They’ve seen what she’s capable of, and they wouldn’t be Avengers, _good_ Avengers, if they weren’t prepared for the threat that she might be one day. 

They’re right to be worried, of course.

She remembers a story that her mother had told her once, about _matsya avatar_ , how the fish had told Manu that, at the end of the _kali yuga_ , the mare who lived at the bottom of the ocean would open her mouth to release a poisonous fire, a fire that will burn the whole universe, gods, constellations and everything.

Maybe, if she doesn’t sound so self-aggrandising, she is the mare; she is the one that will release the poisonous fire that will burn the whole universe, the gods, the constellations, everything.

Or maybe, she is but one unlucky human being, and she is nothing important, and she will die as insignificantly as any other human has.

Both are equally correct, she thinks, after a while.

Sharon comes to the Compound, and their reunion is just as tearful as anything, and Sharon is sobbing into her shoulder, and Toni is crying into her hair, and then, when they’re done, Sharon reaches back and punches Toni in the ribs, having heard from Rhodey and Pepper that she could withstand it. Toni just grins as she takes the blow and throws her arms around Sharon again.

Sharon tells her about Aunt Peggy, and even if Toni knew, knew it in her bones even if she hadn’t been here, Toni starts crying again. When she sees Toni crying, Sharon starts crying again.

Happy’s there with Sharon, and Toni hugs him, the grief dragging in her voice as she tells him how much she missed him, how much she thought of him. Happy turns completely red, as if he hadn’t believed himself to be so important to her but tolerates her embrace as best as anyone can. He tells her that he’s just glad that she’s alive, that she’s home again, and she tells him that one of the best things that she ever did was offer a job to that down-and-out boxer who got her away from that one guy in a club who was trying to roofie her.

Surprisingly, after Rhodey and Pepper, the person that she becomes close to is Bucky, who gets her heart, her experiences in a way that no one else does, not even Rhodey and Pepper, who knew her best in a different life. Bucky knows what it’s like to be used, to be hurt, to be abused by people who want only terrible things for you but guise it under that sickly-sweet condescension, like they’re doing what’s best for you, like they’re giving you some glorious purpose that you have yet to learn for yourself.

Bucky was pulled apart, remade into another image, an image he shirks with great intensity today. Toni was also pulled apart, but she was not remade; no, she was allowed to remain as she was, but she remained in cage, a gilded cage, and Thanos liked to strip off the bits of her that he didn’t like, correct her when she ‘disobeyed’, and brutalise her when he thought she didn’t love him enough.

Bucky’s the one who brings up the kiss, when they’re sitting in front of the lake near the Compound. Bucky has his shirt off, and he shows his scars to her and only her, the scars around his shoulder, near his vibranium prosthetic arm from Wakanda, where HYDRA had carved his arm from his body, because a flesh arm didn’t suit their wants and needs.

Toni has shown him what she looked like before the soul stone, able to reform her body at will now, and she shows him the prosthetic, the ridged, scaly texture that was her breasts and her belly and her shoulders, the strange dissonance between her soft, dark brown skin and the plating of the prosthetic.

“So, are we ever going to talk about it?” he asks, casually, watching how the blustery sunlight from above dapples over the clear water.

“Talk about what?” Toni sighs, content to stretch out like a cat on the grass.

“You kissed me during the battle,” Bucky reminds her.

Toni twists her head so that she can stare at him through half-dark lids. “I did, didn’t I?”

Bucky faces her, his eyes ever sombre. “You did.” He tilts his head. “It didn’t mean anythin’ to you, did it?”

Toni frowns. “What makes you think that?”

“I mean, you just sort of did spontaneously, didn’t you?” Bucky says, awkwardly. “I’m not tryin’ to push you or anythin’, it’s just-”

Toni reaches out, cradling his jaw with a single hand, and leans forward, as fire begins to lick at her insides, and kisses him, slow and deep and messy. Her teeth drag over his lower lip, when she pulls away.

“That meant a lot, James Barnes,” she tells him, her eyes and teeth flashing brightly against her face.

“Yeah?” Bucky clarifies, hope shining across his face.

“Yeah,” Toni muses.

They have sex right there, beside the lake. Toni crawls onto his lap and kisses him again, draping her arms over his shoulders, with her tongue in his mouth, and Bucky holds onto her close, as if he’d pull her inside his body if he could.

He tells her that she’s the first woman he’s been with since 1945, and she tells him that the last person that she had consensual sex with in this universe (and even that is disputed, frankly), she ended up killing.

She hikes up her skirt, and she finds the button on his jeans, unzipping him. Bucky slides his fingers between her legs, nudging under her underwear, and slipping in two fingers to the knuckle to stretch her. She fishes her hand inside his jeans, curls a hand around his half-hard cock and strokes him until he hardens fully in her palm. She sinks on top of him, taking his cock to the base, and she gasps when she feels the stretch, the fullness of having him inside her, and she digs her nails into his back.

Bucky clutches at her, just as tight, his nails biting into her waist, his fingers leaving bruises. She rides him slow, rising and falling as she pleases, taking him into her body over and over again. Bucky’s muscles are taut under his skin, and his brow is damp, and he can’t take his eyes off hers, and neither can she.

It’s a moment just for them, for them to share.

“Hey, guys, Natasha wanted to me to ask whether you were planning on joining us for dinner-”

That’s how Steve finds them, with Toni perched in Bucky’s lap, and his hands up her blouse, palming at her breasts over her bra.

“Jesus Christ!” Steve shouts and quickly turns around.

Bucky grunts when she clenches around his cock, a searing vice. “Thought you weren’t supposed to take the Lord’s name in vain, Rogers,” he teases.

“Do you guys have to do that out here, where anyone can find you?” Steve snaps, his back still to them.

Toni lets a grin spread across her face. “Would you like to join us, Steve?” she offers.

Steve chokes; even Bucky stops moving.

“What are you-what are you talking about?” Steve demands.

Toni sighs and runs her thumb over Bucky’s cheekbone. “Would you mind?” she asks, softly. “if your best friend joins us?”

Her thumb drags down to smooth over his lower, plump lip, and Bucky’s eyes darken.

“Not the first time he’s caught me with my dick wet,” he rasps.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, he thought I didn’t know, but we shared a room, and he’d have his hand around his cock, gettin’ himself off to the sounds of me with a dame,” Bucky tells her, conspiratorially.

She doesn’t have to look at Steve’s face to know that he’s blushing; he makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat.

“Is that so?” Toni muses. “And did you two ever…?” she trails off, purposefully.

Bucky makes a face. “He’s like my brother,” he tells her.

“Fair enough,” Toni murmurs. “But I’m giving him a never-before-seen opportunity,” she says, making her voice deliberately loud enough so that Steve can hear. “I want him to join us.”

Bucky grips her shoulder. “Oh? What d’you want him to do to ya, doll?” he nudges his nose against hers.

Toni chews on her lower lip, just as Steve begins to turn, his face bright and blotchy red, as he looks his fill of the scene he’d walked in on.

“I want him to come over here,” she says, her voice low but enough of an order that it gets Steve moving.

Steve stops when he’s right in front of and looming over them. He looks very much like a deer caught in headlights, and he’d like to start wringing his hands together.

“I’ve had dreams of you, did you know that, Steve?” Toni asks, smiling softly.

Steve shakes his head. His face wars with a million expressions before settling on resolve. “I’ve had dreams of you too.”

Toni’s smile stretches out. “Were they sweet, wholesome dreams, or were they dirty-hot dreams?”

Steve’s throat flexes. “They were both.”

“Good,” Toni says, satisfied. “I’m glad.”

And then, she slips off Bucky’s lap, despite his protests. She seats herself in Steve’s lap, who takes her weight easily, even if his eyes go enormous at having a real-life girl in his lap – she thinks he’s a virgin, that he’s never actually had the chance to put his cock in a girl or a boy. She undoes his jeans much like she’d undone Bucky’s, and she takes him inside her, watching, listening, as he groans, a low, punched-out sound right from the back of his throat, and she shudders like a wildcat at the feel of him.

He’s leaner than Bucky, but longer, whereas Bucky’s thickness adds an extra oomph to his already more-than-average length. She looks over at Bucky, seeing him with his cock hanging out, gleaming with her slick, as he watches her fucking his best friend.

She drags her teeth over her lower and bends at the waist, mouthing at Bucky’s cock. Bucky moans, and his hand itches at his side, like he wants to thread through her hair, fist his fingers tight against her scalp and pull, so that she can choke on his cock.

But he doesn’t – he’s polite like that, both of them are, never touching her unless she might want it or enjoy it, and they’re always asking her, checking in with her, to make sure she’s happy and satisfied, where Ty and Thanos might have just taken what they want.

She angles her mouth over his cock and swallows him half down, running her tongue over the underside of his cock, tasting her own salt-spray bite on his skin, along with the musk and sweat of him. She teasingly runs her tongue over the seam of him, and that’s enough to have him pulsing slow and wet in her mouth, and she pulls off with a wet pop.

She turns her attention back to Steve, bearing down on his cock to hear him gasp, and she’s almost there, he’s almost there, they’re inches away from coming themselves, and Bucky slides his fingers between their bodies to where they’re joined, and he rubs slow, tight circles around her hard clit, and she’s gasping, seizing, shifting restlessly on his lap. She rocks her cunt down on Steve’s cock once more, and Bucky’s pinching her slightly there, on her clit, and the zap of pleasure-pain is enough to get her coming, clenching around Steve desperately.

Steve chokes and grips onto her hips with undeniable strength, and he’s thrusting once and then, twice, furious and familiar, and he’s groaning hard, like he’s losing the air out of his lungs, and she feels him come inside her, wet and sudden and filling her up, his face twisting with ecstasy.

And then, she collapses onto the grass, riding out the waves of pleasure until they subside, and she’s panting, deflating, reaching for them, both of them, tangling their fingers together, in that thoughtless, easy way that she’d always craved to have with someone, as she stares up the full sun, hanging low and round and ripe as a peach.

“How does it feel?” Steve asks, suddenly.

Toni twists her head.

“How does it feel to have all six stones inside you?” he asks, curiously.

_It feels like that, what we just did, what it felt like to have you both inside me._

Toni smiles. “You know,” she begins, mild as milk. “In my religion, we say that when God creates a soul, he creates the body and he climbs within the body as well. So, we all have him inside us, this flesh, earthly, breakable body of ours.”

There’s that sensation in her ribcage again, a dense pull from underneath a breast, growing claws and teeth, one that she’s begun to associate with the stones.

“It feels like that. It feels like I have finally found that part inside me that is God,” she says.


End file.
